He spent a long time by Ellis’s bedside.  I suspect Ellis wasn’t feeling much like pudding at the moment.  I couldn’t hear very well what was going on, but Ellis was chattering as only Ellis can, and the comfortable Burnett was apparently soothing him with an occasional “All right, old man.  I’ll see what I can do for you.”

At length the grapes were all consumed and the huge form of Burnett loomed above me.

“Why, Mr. L——­,” said the soothing voice, “I don’t want to alarm you, but really—­”

“Really what?” I cried, starting up in bed at the gravity of his tone.

“Well, you know—­your colour; I perhaps—­”

He fumbled in the folds of his voluminous gown and produced a small metal mirror.  Then he seemed to change his mind and put it back again.

“I’d better not,” he said softly to himself, and then louder to me, “Have you got a wife—­or perhaps a mother?”

I am no coward, but I confess I was trembling by this time.

“Why?” I cried.  “Do you think I ought to send for them?”

“Send for them?” he echoed. “Send for them? And you in the grip of C.S.M.!  It would be sheer madness—­murder!”

The cold sweat stood out upon my brow but I kept my head.

“Have an apple, won’t you, Mr. Burnett?”

He selected the largest and began to munch it in silence—­silence, that is, as far as talking was concerned.

“Tell me,” I stammered; “wh—­what is C.S.M.?  And may I have a look at myself?”

He cogitated.  “Shall I?” he muttered.  “Yes, I think he ought to know.”  Then quite quietly, accompanied by the core of the apple, there fell from his lips the fatal words “Cerebro-spinal meningitis.”

At the same time he handed me the glass and selected the next best apple.

I looked at myself.  My hair stood straight on end; my face was whitish-yellow, my eyes blazed with unmistakable fever.  A three-days’ beard enhanced the horrible effect.

“Have you any pain—­there?” One of his large soft hands gripped my side and pinched it hard, the other selected the third best apple.

“Yes,” I groaned, “I had pain there.”

“Ah!” he shook his head.  “And there?” He sat down heavily on my right ankle.  He is a ponderous man.

“Agony,” I moaned.

“Ah!  And something throbbing like a gong in the brain?” he inquired, tapping me on the head with the metal mirror.

I nodded dumbly.  He rose, shrugging his shoulders.

“All the symptoms, I’m afraid.  That’s just how it took poor old Simpson.  He had this very cot—­let me see, back in ’16, I suppose.  I had it very slightly afterwards—­it was touch and go; I was the only one they pulled through—­but I only had it very slightly, you understand—­not like that.  But cheer up, old man.  I’ve been told that a fellow got through it in the next ward—­of course he’s an idiot now, but he didn’t die.  I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting the rest of these apples, will you?  All right, don’t mention it;” and he passed on to the next cot.