“Bertie, my boy!”
“Why didn’t you come before, Arnold?” was the low, weak answer; and the breath was laboured and the voice down nowhere. “I have wanted you. Aunt Bessy would not write; and papa thought you would not care to come down from London, just for me.”
“But I would, Bertie—had I known you were as ill as this.”
Bertie’s hands were restless. The white quilt had knots in it as big as peas, and he was picking at them. Dr. Knox sat down by the low bed.
“Do you think I am dying?” suddenly asked Bertie.
It took the doctor by surprise. One does not always know how to answer such home questions.
“I’ll tell you more about it when I’ve seen you by daylight, Bertie. Are you in any pain?”
“Not a bit now: that’s gone. But I’m weak, and I can’t stir about in bed, and—and—they all look at me so. This morning papa and Shuttleworth brought in Dr. Green. Any way, you must know that I shall not get to be as well as I used to be.”
“What with one ailment and another, with care, and pain, and sorrow, and wrong, it seems to me, Bertie, that very few of us are well for long together. There’s always something in this world: it is only when we go to the next that we can hope for rest and peace.”
Bertie lifted his restless hands and caught one of Dr. Knox’s between them. He had a yearning, imploring look that quite pained the doctor.