A muttering, dissatisfied sound, but half articulate, seemed to say, “No better.”
“It ain't to be expected yet,” said Quackinboss. “Lie down, and be quiet a bit.”
Although the first effect of the bleeding seemed to calm the sufferer and arrest his fever, the symptoms of the malady came back in full force afterwards, and, ere day broke, he was raving wildly. At one moment he fancied he was at work in the laboratory with his father, and he ran over great calculations of mental arithmetic with a marvellous volubility; then he was back in his chambers at Trinity, but he could not find his books; they were gone--lost--no, not lost, he suddenly remembered that he had sold them--sold them to send a pittance to his poor sick mother. “It's a sad story, every part of it,” whispered he in Quackinboss's ear, while he clutched him closely with his hands. “It was a great man was lost, mark you; and in a great shipwreck even the fragments of the wreck work sad destruction, and, of course, none will say a word for him. But remember, sir, I am his son, and will not hear a syllable against him, from you nor any other.” From this he abruptly broke off to speak of O'Shea, and his late altercation with him. “I waited at home all the morning for him, and at last got a note to say that he had forgotten to tell me of an appointment he had made to ride out with Miss Leslie, but he 'll be punctual to the hour to-morrow. So it's better as it is, Colonel, for you 'll be here, and can act as my friend,--won't you? Your countrymen understand all these sort of things so well. And then, if I be called away suddenly to England, don't tell them,” whispered he, mysteriously,--“don't tell them at the villa whither I 've gone. They know nothing of me nor of my family; never heard of my ruined father, nor my poor, sick, destitute mother, dying of actual want,--think of that,--while I was playing the man of fortune here, affecting every extravagance,--yes, it was you yourself said so; I overheard you in the garden, asking why or how was it, with such ample means, I would become a tutor.”
It was not alone that these words were uttered in a calm and collected tone, but they actually recalled to the American a remark he had once made about Layton. “Well,” said he, as if some apology was called for, “it warn't any business of mine, but I was sorry to see it.”