' Charlie, Charlie, this will never do,' she said. ' I leave you alone for one day, and you instantly behave naughtily like this. I am ashamed of you.'
' Sybil, it is good of you to come and see me,' he said; ' I wanted to see you so much.'
Then the inevitable querulousness of illness mastered him.
' Oh, I am so uncomfortable,' he said—' so hot and feverish.' And he flung his arm outside the bedclothes.
' Poor old Charlie!' she said; ' poor old fellow! It is a bore. Now, put that arm back at once. There. Now, you are not going to talk to me now, but I am going to make you ever so much more comfortable, put the pillow for you so, and you are going to see the doctor, and then you are going to sleep. Headache? Poor old boy! And I shall sit here and talk to you till the doctor comes.'
She drew a chair to the bedside, and he turned more over in bed so that he looked directly at her.
' Oh, I'm ill, I'm ill,' he said; ' and it was quite my own fault. I sat outside this morning without a rug, and I knew I was catching a chill. And I didn't care. You see, you didn't care. You never asked me what the doctor's report was this morning, and I—I determined not to care either. I am sorry; I shouldn't have said that.'
Sybil's hand trembled as she arranged the bedclothes, which he had thrown off.
' I was a brute,' said she, ' and——— ' She paused. ' Charlie, you must get well,' she cried suddenly.
He lay quite still a moment, with breath coming quickly.
' You said that as if you cared,' he said.
