"Do you feel perfectly well?" repeated the son, looking at his father with smiling intentness.
"Perfectly," replied Cleland Senior, lying.
He had another chat with Dr. Wilmer the following afternoon. It had been an odd affair, and both physician and patient seemed to prefer to speculate about it rather than to come to any conclusion.
It was this. A week or two previous, lying awake in bed after retiring for the night, Cleland seemed to lose consciousness for an interval—probably a very brief interval; and revived, presently, to find himself upright on the floor beside his bed, holding to one of the carved posts, and unable to articulate.
He made no effort to arouse anybody; after a while—but how long he seemed unable to remember clearly—he returned to bed and fell into a heavy sleep. And in the morning when he awoke, the power of speech had returned to him.
But he felt irritable, depressed and tired. That was his story. And the question he had asked Dr. Wilmer was a simple one.
But the physician either could not or would not be definite in his answer. His reply was in the nature of a grave surmise. But the treatment ordered struck Cleland as ominously significant.
CHAPTER X
To any young man his first flirtation with Literature is a heart-rending affair, although the jade takes it lightly enough.
But that muse is a frivolous youngster and plagues her young lovers to the verge of distraction.