Part 47 (1/2)

'Don't talk about it any more, old fellow,' I said; 'you are not well enough yet. To-morrow, after you have had a good night's rest, everything will seem normal and natural.'

'It is normal and natural now,' he laughed; 'besides, it does me good to talk about it to you. It is not as though you were a stranger.'

'No,' cried his mother, 'he has told us all about you, sir, and what you did for him.'

'Perhaps, after all,' went on Edgec.u.mbe, 'I had better not talk any more to-night. You--you think I'll be all right in the morning, don't you? And I am feeling tired and sleepy. Besides, I feel like a kid again;--the idea of going to bed with the little mother holding my hand makes me think of----'

'There now, old man,' I interrupted, 'let me go with you to your room.

You are a bit shaky, you know, and you must look upon me as a stern male nurse.'

Half an hour later, when I left him, he was lying in bed, and as he had said, his mother sat by his side, holding his hand, while Lord Carbis was in a chair close by, watching his son with eager, anxious eyes.

After a few words with Sir Thomas, I made my way to the village of South Petherwin to find the doctor. Truth to tell, I felt more than a little anxious, and although I had persuaded Edgec.u.mbe that when morning came everything would be well, I dreaded his awakening.

As good fortune would have it, I found the doctor at home, who listened with great eagerness and attention to my story.

'It is the strangest thing I have ever heard of,' he said, when I had finished.

'Do you fear any grave results?' I asked.

'Lus...o...b..,' he replied, 'I can speak to you freely. I will go with you to see him, but the whole business is out of my depth. For the matter of that, I doubt if any doctor in England could prophesy what will happen to him. All the same, I see no reason why everything should not be right.'

Without waking him, Dr. Merril took his temperature, felt his pulse, listened to the beating of his heart.

'Everything is right, isn't it?' asked Lord Carbis anxiously.

'As far as I can tell, yes.'

'And there is nothing you can do more than has been done?'

'Nothing,' replied the doctor; 'one of the great lessons which my profession has taught me is, as far as possible, to leave Nature to do her own work.'

'And you think he will awake natural and normal to-morrow morning?'

whispered the older man.

'I see no reason why he should not,' he said. All the same, there was an anxious look in his eyes as he went away.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

EDGEc.u.mBE'S RESOLUTION

In spite of my excitement, I slept heavily and late, and when I awoke I found that it was past ten o'clock. Dressing hurriedly, I rushed to Edgec.u.mbe's bedroom and found him not only awake, but jubilant.

'It's all right, old man,' he said. 'I am a new man. Merril has already been here. He advises me to be quiet for a day or two, but I am going to get up.'

'And there are no ill effects? Your mind is quite clear?'

'Clear as a bell. There is just one black ugly spot; but it doesn't affect things.'