"Why didn't you tell me before? Do you want her?" she asked slowly.
"Yes--but I shall never get her," was the half desperate reply.
"Pooh!" she said, releasing him, after she had kissed him. "We shall
see."
And straightway, with a wave of the hand as it were, she dismissed all
thought of the Honourable Johns and Geralds. Mrs. Penfold and her chatter
sank out of sight and hearing. She was her son's champion--against the
world.
VI
It was the tenth day since the evening when Claude Faversham had been
carried unconscious into Threlfall Tower, and the first one which
anything like clearness of mind had returned to him. Before that there
had been passing gleams and perceptions, soon lost again in the delusions
of fever, or narcotic sleep. A big room--strange faces--pain--a doctor
coming and going--intervals of misery following intervals of
nothingness--helplessness--intolerable oppression--horrible struggles
with food--horrible fear of being touched--gradually, little by little,
these ideas had emerged in consciousness.
Then had followed the first moments of relief--incredibly sweet--but
fugitive, soon swallowed up in returning discomfort; yet lengthening,
deepening, passing by degrees into a new and tremulous sense of security
of a point gained and passed. And at last on this tenth morning--a still
and cloudy morning of early June, he found himself suddenly fully awake,
and as it seemed to him once more in possession of himself.
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