The wind blew very coldly, the roosting rooks rose out of the branches, and the carriages rolled into the night; but still a remnant of visitors stood on the steps talking to John.  His cold was worse; he felt very ill, and now a long sharp pain had grown through his left side, and momentarily it became more and more difficult to exchange polite words and smiles.  The footmen stood waiting by the open door, the horses champed their bits, the green of the park was dark, and a group of kissing girls moved about the loggia, wheels grated on the gravel ... all were gone!  The butler shut the door, and John went to the library fire.

There his mother found him.  She saw that something was seriously the matter.  He was helped up to bed, and the doctor was sent for.  A bad attack of pleurisy.  John was rolled up in an enormous mustard plaster—­mustard and cayenne pepper; it bit into the flesh.  He roared with pain; he was slightly delirious; he cursed those around him, using blasphemous language.

For more than a week he suffered.  He lay bent over, unable to straighten himself, as if a nerve had been wound up too tightly in the left side.  He was fed on gruel and beef-tea, the room was kept very warm; it was not until the twelfth day that he was taken out of bed.

“You have had a narrow escape,” the doctor said to John, who, well wrapped up, lay back, looking very weak and pale, before a blazing fire.  “It was very lucky I was sent for.  Twenty-four hours later I would not have answered for your life.”

“I was delirious, was I not?”

“Yes, slightly; you cursed and swore fearfully at us when we rolled you up in the mustard plaster....  Well, it was very hot, and must have burnt you.”

“Yes, it was; it has scarcely left a bit of skin on me.  But did I use very bad language?  I suppose I could not help it....  I was delirious, was I not?”

“Yes, slightly.”

“Yes; but I remember, and if I remember right, I used very bad language; and people when they are really delirious do not know what they say.  Is not that so, doctor?”

“If they are really delirious they do not remember, but you were only slightly delirious ... you were maddened by the pain occasioned by the pungency of the plaster.”

“Yes; but do you think I knew what I was saying?”

“You must have known what you were saying, because you remember what you said.”

“But could I be held accountable for what I said?”

“Accountable....  Well, I hardly know what you mean.  You were certainly not in the full possession of your senses.  Your mother (Mrs Norton) was very much shocked, but I told her that you were not accountable for what you said.”

“Then I could not be held accountable, I did not know what I was saying.”

“I don’t think you did exactly; people in a passion don’t know what they say!”

“Ah! yes, but we are answerable for sins committed in the heat of passion:  we should restrain our passion; we were wrong in the first instance in giving way to passion....  But I was ill, it was not exactly passion.  And I was very near death; I had a narrow escape, doctor?”