"Nothing to be done for her?" he echoes, with a shocked look. "My dear old chap, you do not mean to say—to imply—"
"I mean to imply nothing," interrupts Jim sharply, in a superstitious panic of hearing some unfavourable augury as to his betrothed put into words. "I mean just what I say—neither more nor less; there is nothing to be done for her to-night, nothing but to let her sleep—a good sleep will set her up: of course a good sleep will quite set her up."
He speaks almost angrily, as if expecting and challenging contradiction. But Byng's spirit has already flown back to his own woes. He may make what sanguine statements he pleases about Amelia's to-morrow, without fearing any demurrer from his companion. What attention the latter has to spare is evidently only directed to the solving of the problem, how best, with amicable civility, to be rid of him. Before he can hit upon any expedient for attaining this desired end, Burgoyne speaks again, his eye resting with a compassionate expression upon his junior's face, whose wild pallor is heightened by the disorder of his hair, and the hat crushed down over his brows.
"You have not had anything to eat all day—had not you better come back to the hotel and get something to eat?"
"Eat!" cries the other, with almost a scream; "you must have very little comprehension of——" Then, checking himself and with a strong and palpable effort for composure: "It would not be worth while, I should not have time; in an hour—less than an hour now, for I must have been here quite ten minutes at the least—I have to return to the Piazza d'Azeglio."
"Then go to Doney's; why not get something to eat at Doney's? It will not take you five minutes to reach the Via Tornabuoni."
"What should I do when I got there?" asks Byng impatiently. "If I tried to swallow food, it would stick in my throat; no food shall pass my lips till I learn where she is; after that"—breaking out into a noisy laugh—"you may do what you please with me—we will make a night of it with all my heart, we will—
"'Drink, drink,
Till the pale stars blink!'"
Jim looks blankly at him. Is he going mad?
"If you think that you will get me to go back to the hotel to-night, you are very much mistaken," continues Byng recklessly; "no roof less high than this"—jerking back his head, to throw his fevered look up to the cool stars—"shall shelter my head; and besides, where would be the use of going to bed when I should have to be up again so early? I shall be off by one of the morning expresses: until I have learnt—as, of course, I shall do to-night—where she has gone, I cannot tell which; but neither of them starts much later than seven."