‘Very ill,’ answered Madeline. ‘But do not talk; the doctor says you must not. Let me bring your beef-tea.’
The doctor had ordered him to have beef-tea in liberal portions every hour: it was the only way, he said, to combat the fever.
‘I think I shall soon be all right,’ said White, presently. ‘I must take more care of myself for the future, though. I’m getting quite an old fellow, and must go to bed at ten.
When Dr. Tain entered, White looked up and nodded cheerfully.
‘Here I am, you see! Pallida Mors won’t have me this time, after all, and I was thinking that I could eat a mutton chop, well peppered.’
The doctor replied cheerfully, and patted White gently on the shoulder; but Madeline, catching the expression of his face as he turned away, was somewhat troubled.
‘Keep him quiet,’ he whispered to her at the door.
‘I’ll look in again in the afternoon.’
From this intimation it became clear that the doctor was uneasy. Scarcely had he gone when the patient exhibited great restlessness and difficulty of breathing; and when the doctor returned in the afternoon he found him rambling incoherently.
Leaving the sick room, he went into the studio, where Forster, whose attentions had been unremitting, was impatiently waiting.