When I awoke the room was grey with dusk, and I sat up with a swaying head, glad to hide the shame of my foolish swollen face amongst the shadows.  My mouth was still salt with tears, and I was very thirsty, but I was always anxious to hide my weakness from other people, and I was afraid that if I asked for something to drink they would see that I had been crying.  The fire had gone out while I slept, and I felt cold and stiff, but my abandonment of restraint had relieved me, and my fear was now no more than a vague unrest.  My mind thought slowly but very clearly.  I saw that it was a pity that I had not been more ill than I was, for then, like my brother, I should have gone away for a month instead of a fortnight.  As it was, everybody laughed at me because I looked so well, and said they did not believe that I had been ill at all.  If I had thought of it earlier I might have been able to make myself worse somehow or other, but now it was too late.  When the maid came in and lit the gas for tea she blamed me for letting the fire out, and told me that I had a dirty face.  I was glad of the chance to slip away and wash my burning cheeks in cold water.  When I had finished and dried my face on the rough towel I looked at myself in the glass.  I looked as if I had been to the seaside for a holiday, my cheeks were so red!

That night as I lay sleepless in my bed, seeking for a cool place between the sheets in which to rest my hot feet, the sickness of fear returned to me, and I knew that I was lost.  I shut my eyes tightly, but I could not shut out the vivid pictures of school life that my memory had stored up for my torment; I beat my head against the pillow, but I could not change my thoughts.  I recalled all the possible events that might interfere with my return to school, a new illness, a railway accident, even suicide, but my reason would not accept these romantic issues.  I was helpless before my destiny, and my destiny made me I afraid.

And then, perhaps I was half asleep or fond with fear, I leapt out of bed and stood in the middle of the room to meet life and fight it.  The hem of my nightshirt tickled my shin and my feet grew cold on the carpet; but though I stood ready with my fists clenched I could see no adversary among the friendly shadows, I could hear no sound but the I drumming of the blood against the walls of my head.  I got back into bed and pulled the bedclothes about my chilled body.  It seemed that life would not fight fair, and being only a little boy and not wise like the grown-up people, I could find no way in which to outwit it.

IV