While Colin’s mind was thus occupied, it occurred to him suddenly to wonder why he himself was so ill and so feeble. He had no inclination to get up from the bed on which he lay. Sometimes he coughed, and the cough pained him; his very breathing was a fatigue to him now and then. As he lay pondering this new thought, curious half-recollections, as of things that had happened in a dream, came into Colin’s mind; visions of doctors examining some one--he scarcely knew whether it was himself or another--and of conversations that had been held over his bed. As he struggled through these confusing mazes of recollection or imagination, his head began to ache and his heart to beat; and finally his uneasy movements woke the nurse, who was alarmed and would not listen to any of the questions he addressed to her. “My lady told you as you’d hear everything to-morrow,” said Colin’s attendant; “for goodness gracious sake take your draught, do, and lie still; and don’t go a-moidering and a-bothering, and take away a poor woman’s character, as was never known to fall asleep before, nor wouldn’t but for thinking you was better and didn’t want nothing.” It was strange to the vigorous young man, who had never been in the hands of a nurse in his life, to feel himself constrained to obey--to feel, indeed, that he had no power to resist, but was reduced to utter humiliation and dependence, he could not tell how. He fell asleep afterwards, and dreamed of Harry Frankland drowning, and of himself going down, down through the muddy, black water--always down, in giddy circles of descent, as if it were bottomless. When he woke again it was morning, and his attendant was putting his room to rights, and disposed to regard himself with more friendly eyes. “Don’t you go disturbing of yourself,” said the nurse, “and persuading of the doctor as you ain’t no better. You’re a deal better, if he did but know it. What’s come to you? It’s all along of falling in the canal that night along of Mr. Harry. If you takes care, and don’t get no more cold, you’ll do well.”
“Along with Mr. Harry--poor Harry!--and he--?” said Colin. His own voice sounded very strange to him, thin and far-off, like a shadow of its former self. When he asked this question, the profoundest wistful pity filled the young man’s heart. He was sorry to the depths of his soul for the other life which had, he supposed, gone out in darkness. “Poor Frankland!” he repeated to himself, with an action of mournful regret. _He_ had been saved, and the other lost. So he thought, and the thought went to his heart.