The tears ran down my wife’s cheeks as she described to me how he would start up in the night and cry out, “Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!” with a pathos which rent her heart.  And she sitting there all the time, only longing to do everything his heart could desire!  But though she would try to soothe him, crying, “You are at home, my darling.  I am here.  Don’t you know me?  Your mother is here!” he would only stare at her, and after a while spring up again with the same cry.  At other times he would be quite reasonable, she said, asking eagerly when I was coming, but declaring that he must go with me as soon as I did so, “to let them in.”  “The doctor thinks his nervous system must have received a shock,” my wife said.  “Oh, Henry, can it be that we have pushed him on too much with his work—­a delicate boy like Roland?  And what is his work in comparison with his health?  Even you would think little of honors or prizes if it hurt the boy’s health.”  Even I!—­as if I were an inhuman father sacrificing my child to my ambition.  But I would not increase her trouble by taking any notice.  After awhile they persuaded me to lie down, to rest, and to eat, none of which things had been possible since I received their letters.  The mere fact of being on the spot, of course, in itself was a great thing; and when I knew that I could be called in a moment, as soon as he was awake and wanted me, I felt capable, even in the dark, chill morning twilight, to snatch an hour or two’s sleep.  As it happened, I was so worn out with the strain of anxiety, and he so quieted and consoled by knowing I had come, that I was not disturbed till the afternoon, when the twilight had again settled down.  There was just daylight enough to see his face when I went to him; and what a change in a fortnight!  He was paler and more worn, I thought, than even in those dreadful days in the plains before we left India.  His hair seemed to me to have grown long and lank; his eyes were like blazing lights projecting out of his white face.  He got hold of my hand in a cold and tremulous clutch, and waved to everybody to go away.  “Go away—­even mother,” he said; “go away.”  This went to her heart; for she did not like that even I should have more of the boy’s confidence than herself; but my wife has never been a woman to think of herself, and she left us alone.  “Are they all gone?” he said eagerly.  “They would not let me speak.  The doctor treated me as if I were a fool.  You know I am not a fool, papa.”

“Yes, yes, my boy, I know.  But you are ill, and quiet is so necessary.  You are not only not a fool, Roland, but you are reasonable and understand.  When you are ill you must deny yourself; you must not do everything that you might do being well.”

He waved his thin hand with a sort of indignation.  “Then, father, I am not ill,” he cried.  “Oh, I thought when you came you would not stop me,—­you would see the sense of it!  What do you think is the matter with me, all of you?  Simson is well enough; but he is only a doctor.  What do you think is the matter with me?  I am no more ill than you are.  A doctor, of course, he thinks you are ill the moment he looks at you—­that’s what he’s there for—­and claps you into bed.”