“He’s tired, Clare,” said my husband. “A bright fire, and an English bed and rest—that’s all Bertie wants to-night. He’ll answer all your questions to-morrow. Come, old fellow, you know your way to your old room.”
“I should think so, indeed—and thank God I am at home,” cried Bertie, with his familiar voice. With a thrill of anguish I restrained my salutations and followed quietly to see that all was comfortable for him. He protested that it was nonsense, that he could come downstairs perfectly well, that Mr. Crofton only wanted to humble his vanity; but at the same moment drew up his foot wearily upon the sofa, with a gesture that showed better than words his need of rest.
“Alas, Derwent, has it come to this?” said I, as we went downstairs.
Derwent turned round upon me, put his big hands upon my shoulders, and thrust me in before him to the handiest room. “Now, Clare,” he said, with comical solemnity, “if we are going to have any nonsense or lamentations, I’ll shut you up here till my patient’s better. The boy is as sound as I am, and would be able to ride to cover in a fortnight, if any such chances were going. Now don’t say a word—I am speaking simple truth.”
“I must trust my own eyes,” said I; “but you need not fear my indiscretion. See how I have refrained from agitating him now.”
“Agitating him! Oh!” cried Derwent, with a good-humored roar. “What stuff you speak, to be sure! He is quite able to be agitated as much as you please—there is nothing in the world but wounds and fatigue the matter with Bertie. I am afraid you are only a woman after all, Clare; but you’re not to interfere with my patient. I’ve taken him in hand, and mind you, I’m to have the credit, and bring him through.”
“But, oh, Derwent,” said I, “how pale he is!”
“If I had seen as many dreadful sights as he has, I should be pale too,” said Derwent. “Seriously, he is tired and worn out, but not ill. Don’t be sorry for him, Clare—don’t put anything in his head. Talk pleasantly. I don’t forbid the subject, for example,” said my husband, looking at me with a certain affectionate cloudy mirth, as if he had known my secret all along, “of Alice Harley, if you choose.”
I put him aside a little impatiently, and he followed me into the very late dinner, which had been deferred for the arrival of the travellers, and where Bertie’s empty chair struck me again with a little terror. But I was wise for once, and yielded to Derwent’s more cheerful opinion. On the next morning Bertie was better—he went on getting better day by day. Derwent took care of him, and attended him in a way which took me by surprise; never teasing him with questions—never gazing at him with his heart in his eyes, as we womanish creatures do, to mar the work we would give our lives to accomplish; but with his eyes always open, and his attention really missing nothing that happened, and taking account of all.
A week after his arrival, Bertie, who hitherto had been telling me, as he could, his adventures in India—dread adventures, interwoven with all the thread of that murderous history—at last broke all at once into the full tide of home talk.