“I’m sorry for upsetting your game, boys,” he said stupidly.
Then Rocket came effectively to the rescue.
“Gents,” he cried, “you’ll all honor me by drinkin’ with the house.”
CHAPTER IX
A WOMAN’S CARE
“He’s right now, Eve, dear––right as right. He’ll sleep till morning, and then he’ll wake up, an’––an’ forget about being ill.”
It was not so much the words as the tone that brought comfort to Eve. She was leaning over her brother’s bed watching the beautiful face, so waxen now, and listening to his heavy breathing, which was steadily moderating to a normal ease. The boy was sleeping the result of a dose administered to him by Doc Crombie who had been urgently summoned immediately after winning his race with Nature in another part of the village. Elia had been prostrated with a nervous attack which ended in a terrible fit, and Eve, all unaware of what had gone before between her brother and Will, had been hard put to it, in her grief and anxiety.
When the boy first showed signs of illness she sent for Mrs. Gay to find the doctor, and the bright, busy little woman was still with her. Annie Gay was quite the antithesis of her husband. She was practical, energetic and, above all things, bright. She was quite young and pretty, and Eve and she were considerable friends. She answered the girl’s summons without a moment’s delay, and, to her utmost distress, when she arrived, she found Elia in a fierce paroxysm of convulsions.