"He is so distressed by your going?" asked Elizabeth, trembling.
Anderson did not answer, except to repeat insistently--
"You must go to him. I don't myself think he is any worse--but--"
Elizabeth hurried away. Anderson sat down beside Mrs. Gaddesden, and began to talk to her.
When his sister entered his room, Philip was sitting up in an arm-chair near the fire; looking so hectic, so death-doomed, so young, that his sister ran to him in an agony--"Darling Philip--my precious Philip--why did you want me? Why aren't you asleep?"
She bent over him and kissed his forehead, and then taking his hand she laid it against her cheek, caressing it tenderly.
"I'm not asleep--because I've had to think of a great many things," said the boy in a firm tone. "Sit down, please, Elizabeth. For a few days past, I've been pretty certain about myself--and to-night I screwed it out of Barnett. I haven't said anything to you and mother, but--well, the long and short of it is, Lisa, I'm not going to recover--that's all nonsense--my heart's too dicky--I'm going to die."
She protested with tears, but he impatiently asked her to be calm. "I've got to say something--something important--and don't you make it harder, Elizabeth! I'm not going to get well, I tell you--and though I'm not of age--legally--yet I do represent father--I am the head of the family--and I have a right to think for you and mother. Haven't I?"
The contrast between the authoritative voice, the echo of things in him, ancestral and instinctive, and the poor lad's tremulous fragility, was moving indeed. But he would not let her caress him.
"Well, these last weeks, I've been thinking a great deal, I can tell you, and I wasn't going to say anything to you and mother till I'd got it straight. But now, all of a sudden, Anderson comes and says that he's going back. Look here, Elizabeth--I've just been speaking to Anderson. You know that he's in love with you--of course you do!"