Jim hesitates, and the painful perplexity written on his brow is misread by her.
"You are vexed with me for teasing you with so many tiresome questions. Oh, forgive me! I ought not to take advantage of your kindness; but we have grown to depend upon you so; and I will promise not to worry you with any other, if you will only answer me this one. Is he changed—much changed?"
"I am afraid," replies Jim, with the slowness of one who is trying to convey unpleasant tidings in the least unpleasant terms, "that you must be prepared to find him a good deal altered."
"Altered! How?"
"I do not quite know how to describe it"—uneasily—"but you must not be shocked if you find him a good deal changed in looks; and he is—he seems, in a very excited state."
She makes a clutch at his hand.
"Do you mean"—her voice has sunk to a horror-struck whisper—"that he is—mad?"
"Mad! Oh, of course not," with a strained laugh; "you must not jump to such conclusions. But I do not think he is quite himself, that is all. He looks as if he had not eaten or slept for a fortnight; and if you play such tricks as that with yourself, you must expect to get a little off your balance."
She is still terrifiedly clutching his hand, though with no consciousness of doing so, nor that the fingers so tightly gripped by her are not made of dry stick.
"You must not look so frightened," he says soothingly. "I would not have said anything to you, only that I thought it better you should be prepared—that it should not take you quite by surprise; and also because I wanted to give you a hint, that you might be a little careful what you say to him, or, at all events, how you say it."