“What’s the matter?  What did the doctor say?”

“He said there’s congestion of the lung or something.  Martin took a fit of the shivers after you’d gone, and of course it made him worse when the doctor said the magic word ‘lung.’  He’s always been hipped about himself, you know.”

“I’d better go and see him.”

She hitched the reins, and climbed down out of the trap—­stumbling awkwardly as she alighted, for she had begun to tremble.

“You don’t think he’s very bad, do you?”

“Can’t say.  I wish Taylor ud come.  He said he’d be here again this morning.”

His voice was sharp and complaining, for anything painful always made him exasperated.  Martin lying ill in bed, Martin shivering and in pain and in a funk was so unlike the rather superior being whom he liked to pretend bullied him, that he felt upset and rather shocked.  He gave a sigh of relief as Joanna ran upstairs—­he told himself that she was a good practical sort of woman, and handsome when she was properly dressed.

She had never been upstairs in North Farthing House before, but she found Martin’s room after only one false entry—­which surprised the guilty Raddish sitting at Sir Harry’s dressing-table and smarming his hair-cream on her ignoble head.  The blinds in Martin’s room were down, and he was half-sitting, half-lying in bed, with his head turned away from her.

“That you, father?—­has Taylor come?”

“No, it’s me, dearie.  I’ve come to see what I can do for you.”

The sight of him huddled there in the pillows, restless, comfortless, neglected, wrung her heart.  Hitherto her love for Martin had been singularly devoid of intimacy.  They had kissed each other, they had eaten dinner and tea and supper together, they had explored the Three Marshes in each other’s company, but she had scarcely ever been to his house, never seen him asleep, and in normal circumstances would have perished rather than gone into his bedroom.  To-day when she saw him there, lying on his wide, tumbled bed, among his littered belongings—­his clothes strewn untidily on the floor, his books on their shelves, his pictures that struck her rigidity as indecent, his photographs of people who had touched his life, some perhaps closely, but were unknown to her, she had a queer sense of the revelation of poor, pathetic secrets.  This, then, was Martin when he was away from her—­untidy, sensual, forlorn, as all men were ... she bent down and kissed him.

“Lovely Jo,” ... he yielded childish, burning lips, then drew away—­“No, you mustn’t kiss me—­it might be bad for you.”

“Gammon, dear.  ’Tis only a chill.”