“I say, what is it?—Look out!” and Tom had only just time to spring forward and guide his fall as he dropped in a dead faint upon the couch hard by.
“Poor boy!” said Monica gently; “the shock has been too much for him.”
Lord Haddon was carried upstairs by Tom’s direction, and put to bed at once, but it was a very long time before he recovered consciousness, and the doctor’s face was grave when he rejoined Monica and Beatrice an hour later.
Afterwards they learned that he had reached the life-boat station, only to find the boat out in another direction, that he had lost his way in the darkness, and had been riding for hours over trackless moors, wet through by driving storms of rain, obliged often to halt, despite the cold and wet, to wait for passing gleams of moonlight to show him his way; and this after a long day’s shooting and a long fast. He had reached the castle at last, utterly worn out and exhausted, only to hear the terrible news of the death of his best friend. The strain had been too much, and he had given way.
He awoke to consciousness only in a high state of fever, with pain in every joint; and Beatrice, in answer to Tom’s question, admitted that her brother had had a sharp attack of rheumatic fever some three years before, and had always been rather susceptible to cold and damp ever since.
“I was afraid he was in for something of that kind.”
“Poor boy!” she said again, very gently. “I am so sorry. You will stay with us, Tom? It will be a comfort to have you.”
“Of course I will stay,” he answered, in his abruptest fashion. “I shall sit up with Haddon to-night. You two must go to bed at once—I insist upon it.”
“Come, Beatrice,” said Monica, holding out her hand. “We must obey orders you see.”
As they went together up the broad staircase, Beatrice said, with a little sob:
“I cannot bear to think of our giving you all this trouble—just now.”
“Have you not learned by this time Beatrice, that the greatest help in bearing our own sorrows is to help others with their burdens? I am grieved for you, dear, that this other trouble should have come; but Tom is very clever, and we will all nurse him back to health again. Good-night, dearest. You must try to sleep, that you may be strong to-morrow.”