CHAPTER XXXIX.
A TESTIMONIAL.
Joan went back to her lodgings at the Thwaites' and left Mrs. Barholm and Anice to fill her place.
Too prostrate to question his nurses, Derrick could only lie with closed eyes helpless and weary. He could not even keep himself awake long enough to work his way to any very clear memories of what had happened. He had so many half recollections to tantalize him. He could remember his last definite sensation,—a terrible shock flinging him to the ground, a second of pain and horror, and then utter oblivion. Had he awakened one night and seen Joan Lowrie by the dim fire-light and called out to her, and then lost himself? Had he awakened for a second or so again and seen her standing close to his pillow, looking down at him with an agony of dread in her face?
In answer to his question, Grace had told him that she had been with him from the first. How had it happened? This he asked himself again and again, until he grew feverish over it.
"Above all things," he heard the doctor say, "don't let him talk and don't talk to him."
But Grace comprehended something of his mental condition.
"I see by your look that you wish to question me," he said to him. "Have patience for a few days and then I will answer every question you may ask. Try to rest upon that assurance."
