“Good heavens!” he ejaculated. “The last person I—”
“You!” said Mrs Lorton. “How astonishing! What on earth—”
He seized the opening she gave him with all the ardour of the whole-souled influenza patient.
“I have been ill,” he said with a deep pathos, “very, very ill. My symptoms were most extraordinary.”
He sank down heavily at her side, and continued, “I doubt if any one has endured such agony before. It began on a Sunday with—”
“So did mine,” Mrs Lorton interrupted with some show of determination. “You cannot conceive what it was like. I had pains in every limb, every limb positively. The doctor—”
“Of course I went straight to bed,” he remarked with firmness. “I knew at once what was wrong. But mine was no ordinary case. Talk of thumbscrews! Why—”
“For nights I tossed in agony,” she went on with a poignant self-pity, so much engrossed that she never noticed the brown boots which on other occasions had so deeply offended her. “Morphia and eucalyptus were no—”
“He said it was pneumonia, double pneumonia,” Burnham concluded emphatically. “How I came through it I shall never know.” His smile at this point was wan, and seemed to deprecate existence. “I suppose there is still some work for me to do. At the same time, I—”