“Listen!” she said eagerly, “try to understand! Oh, Mr. May, try to understand! I know about it—I know everything, and you are safe—quite safe; you need not have any fear!”
He did not follow what she said, Phœbe perceived with pain and terror. Even the impression made by the first sight of her seemed to fade from his mind. His grasp relaxed upon the curtains and coverlet; and then the hoarse murmuring was resumed. Straining all her ears, she made out that he was not speaking to her or any one, but moaned to himself, saying the same words over and over again. It took her a long time to make out even what these words were. When at last she did make them out they filled the girl with an alarm beyond words.
“It used to be hanging,” he said. “Hard labour; can I bear hard labour? And the children—the children! Hard labour—for life. Hanging—was soon over. The children! I cannot bear it. I never was put to—hard labour—in all my life.”
Phœbe was too sick at heart to listen to more. She drew a little apart, but near enough to be seen by him. If he chose to spring up, to fling himself from the window, as she had heard of men doing in delirium, who could restrain him? Not she, a slight girl, nor Betsy, even if Betsy could be roused to the danger. She did not know how long the vigil which followed lasted, but it seemed like years to her; and when at last she was relieved by the joyful sound of Reginald's voice and footstep coming up the stairs, she felt disposed to run to the glass at once, and look if her hair had grown white, or her countenance permanently changed with the terror. Reginald, for his part, thought of his father in the second place only, as children are apt to do; he came up to her first, and with a thrill in his voice of surprise and emotion, addressed her hastily by her name.
“Phœbe! is it you who are watching—you, darling?”
“Hush! I sent Ursula to bed; she was so tired. Don't leave him. I am frightened,” cried Phœbe. “He is wandering in his mind. Oh, don't leave him, Mr. May!”
“I will do exactly as you tell me,” said Reginald, in a confused transport of feeling, the very anxiety in his mind helping to destroy his self-control. He stooped down and kissed her hands before she could divine what he was about to do. “Only you or an angel would have done it,” he cried, with a tremulous voice.
Was it not natural that he should think that some thought of him had made Phœbe so careful of his father? His heart was swelling, too full to hold, with a sudden joy, which expanded the pain, and made that greater too.
“Oh, what does it matter about me? Mr. May, think what I am saying. Don't leave him for a moment. He might throw himself out of the window, he might do some harm to himself. Ah! again!” said Phœbe, trembling.
But this time it was only a convulsive start, nothing more. The patient dropped down again softly upon his pillows, and relapsed into his doze, if doze it could be called, in which his faculties were but half-dormant, and his open eyes contradicted all the appearances of natural sleep.