For there was no doubt that he was beginning to fade. He got paler and thinner by degrees, and one day she found him in a dead faint upon the floor. The slight uneasiness in his hip had increased to actual pain, and the pain had spread to his back. In an agony of apprehension she summoned the doctor, and the doctor with hollow professional cheerfulness said that that sort of thing wouldn’t do at all, and that Master Austin must make up his mind to lie up a bit. And so he was put to bed, and people smiled ghastly smiles which were far more heartrending than sobs, and talked about taking him away to some beautiful warm southern climate where he would soon grow strong and well again. Austin only said that he was very comfortable where he was, and that he wouldn’t think of being taken away, because he knew how dreadfully poor Aunt Charlotte suffered at sea, and travelling was a sad nuisance after all. And indeed it would have been impossible to move him, for his sufferings were occasionally very great. Sometimes he would writhe in strange agonies all night long, till they used to wonder how he would live through it; but when morning came he scarcely ever remembered anything at all, and in answer to enquiries always said that he had had a very good night indeed, thank you. Once or twice he seemed to have a dim recollection of something—some “bustle and fluff,” as he expressed it—during his troubled sleep; and then he would ask anxiously whether he really had been giving them any bother, and assure them that he was so very sorry, and hoped they would forgive him for having been so stupid. At which Aunt Charlotte had to smile and joke as heroically as she knew how.
There were some days, however, when he was quite free from pain, and then he was as bright and cheerful as ever. He lay in his white bed surrounded by the books he loved, which he read intermittently; and every now and then, when Aunt Charlotte thought he was strong enough, a visitor would be admitted. Roger St Aubyn, now back from Italy, often dropped in to sit with him, and these were golden hours to Austin, who listened delightedly to his friend’s absorbing descriptions of the beautiful places he had been to and the wonderful old legends that were attached to them. Then nothing would content him but that Lubin must come up occasionally and tell him how the garden was looking, and what he thought of the prospects for next summer, and answer all sorts of searching questions as to the operations in which he had been engaged since Austin had been a prisoner. Austin enjoyed these colloquies with Lubin; the very sight of him, he said, was like having a glimpse of the garden. But somehow Lubin’s eyes always looked rather red and misty when he came out of the room, and it was noticed that he went about his work in a very half-hearted and listless manner.