"And how soon will he know? How soon will it declare itself?"
"I do not know."
"But has he prescribed? Is there nothing to be done—to be done at once?" asks Jim feverishly, chafing at the idea of this inaction, which seems inevitable, with that helpless feeling which his own entire ignorance of sickness produces.
"Do not you suppose that if there was we should have done it?" cries Cecilia, rendered even more uncomfortable than she was before, by the contagion of his anxiety. "We are to keep her in bed—there is no great difficulty about that, poor soul; she has not the least desire to get up; she seems so odd and heavy!"
"So odd and heavy?"
"Yes; I went in to see her just now, and she scarcely took any notice of me; only when I told her that you had been to inquire after her, she lit up a little. I believe"—with a rather grudging smile—"that if she were dead, and someone mentioned your name, she would light up."
A sudden mountain rises in Jim's throat.
"If she is not better to-morrow, Dr. Coldstream will send a nurse."
"But does he think it will be necessary?"
"He does not know."