“Yes; jolly well deserved it too. And he was so sick with me afterwards when I told him so. But we made it up. David said he was sorry. Silly fool! As if he ever did anything to a pal he could be sorry for.”
“Don’t know what there was about him,” he said, “but there he was. Just David, you know. And he liked you most awfully. I used to get damned jealous. Sorry if you mind.”
The two sat there together while the warm night with many stars wheeled overhead above the sleeping house, talking occasionally, but for the most part in silence. Adams, who also was sitting up, came in from time to time to see them, and they would sit all three together. From the sick-room came no determining news: David was conscious and awake, and they had given him all the morphia that they dared. His temperature had not risen further, but he was very much exhausted; the question was how his strength would hold out unless he got to sleep. This Adams told them, and perhaps they talked for a little of David, recalling some incident of past days. Then Adams would leave them again to go back to David’s father and sister.
But not long after midnight he came in again, having only just gone out.
“David has suddenly asked if you were here, Frank,” he said. “He wants to see you, and the doctor thinks you had better go to him. He is getting very restless, and perhaps you may be able to quiet him. That’s what they want you to do. You can trust yourself?”
The room where he lay was lit by a lamp that was shaded from the bed, and near the head of it was standing the doctor, who nodded to Frank as he came in, and beckoned him to the bed, putting a chair for him by the side of it.
“Oh, I say, that’s ripping,” he said faintly. “But I can’t see you very well. Mayn’t there be a bit more light?”
The doctor quietly tilted the shade round the lamp, so that the light fell on Frank’s face.
“Yes, rather. I wanted to see you awfully. I wondered if you would come. I thought perhaps you would when you knew. Frank, am I going to die?”
Frank pulled the chair a little closer, and bent over him.
“No,” he said. “You’re going to do nothing of the sort. We can’t get on without you possibly, so you’ve got to get well. See?”
The doctor came close to Frank and whispered to him.