Part 56 (1/2)
”What of?”
”Of some awful thing happening and of my not having the nerve to face it.”
”You've nerve enough for anything.”
”You don't know me. I'm an utter coward. I can't face things. Especially the thing I'm afraid of.”
”What is it? Tell me.” He leaned nearer to her, and she almost whispered.
”I'm afraid of his having a fit--epilepsy. He _might_ have it.”
”He might. But he won't. You mustn't think of it.”
”I'm always thinking of it. And the most--the most awful thing is that--I'm afraid of _seeing_ it.”
She bowed her head and looked away from him as if she had confessed to an unpardonable shame.
”Poor child. Of course you are,” said Prothero. ”We're all afraid of something. I'm afraid, if you'll believe it, of the sight of blood.”
”You?”
”I.”
”Oh--but you wouldn't lose your head and run away from it.”
”Wouldn't I?”
”No. Or you couldn't go and be a doctor. Why,” she asked suddenly, ”did you?”
”_Because_ I was afraid of the sight of blood. You see, it was this way.
My father was a country doctor--a surgeon. One day he sent me into his surgery. The butcher had been thrown out of his cart and had his cheek cut open. My father was sewing it up, and he wanted me--I was a boy about fifteen at the time--to stand by with lumps of cotton-wool and mop the butcher while he sewed him up. What do you suppose I did?”
”You fainted?--You were ill on the spot?”
”No. I wasn't on the spot at all. I ran away.”
A slight tremor pa.s.sed over the whiteness of her face; he took it for the vibration of some spiritual recoil.
”What do you say to that?”
”I don't say anything.”
”My father said I was a d.a.m.ned coward, and my mother said I was a hypocrite. I'd been reading the Book of Job, you see, when it happened.”
”They might have known,” she said.
”They might have known what?”
”That you were different.”