She found his cheeks and hands as burning hot as they had been cold; they were like live coals; and what was worse, such severe pains were running all over his limbs, that he was squeezing the clothes into his mouth that he might not scream aloud.

Happily it was Mr. Blunt’s day for calling; and before the morning was over he came, and after a few words of explanation, he stood at Paul’s bedside.

Not much given to tenderness towards the feelings of patients of his degree, Mr. Blunt’s advice was soon given.  ’Yes, he is in for rheumatic fever—­won’t be about again for a long time to come.  I say, Mistress, all you’ve got to do is to send in your boy to the Union at Elbury, tell ’em to send out a cart for him, and take him in as a casual pauper.  Then they may pass him on to his parish.’

Therewith Mr. Blunt went on to attend to Alfred.

‘Then you think this poor lad will be ill a long time, Sir?’ said Mrs. King, when Mr. Blunt was preparing to depart.

’Of course he will; I never saw a clearer case!  You’d better send him off as fast as you can, while he can be moved.  He’ll have a pretty bout of it, I dare say.

‘It is nothing infectious, of course, Sir?’ said the mother, a little startled by this hastiness.

’Infectious—­nonsense! why, you know better than that, Mrs. King; I only meant that you’d better get rid of him as quick as you can, unless you wish to set up a hospital at once—­and a capital nurse you’d be!  I would leave word with the relieving officer for you, but that I’ve got to go on to Stoke, and shan’t be at home till too late.’

Mrs. King’s heart ached for the poor forlorn orphan, when she remembered what she had heard of the nursing in Elbury Union.  She did not know how to turn him from her door the day he had saved her son from danger such as she could not think of without shuddering; and yet, what could she do?  Her rent and the winter before her, a heavy doctor’s bill, and the loss of Alfred’s work!

Slowly she went up the stairs again to the narrow landing that held the bed where Paul Blackthorn lay.  He was quite still, but there were large tears coursing one after the other from his eyes, his hollow cheeks quite glazed with them.

‘Is the pain so very bad?’ she said in her soft voice, putting her hand over his hot forehead, in the way that Alfred liked.

‘I don’t—­know,’ he answered; and his black eyes, after looking up once in her face with the piteous earnest glance that some loving dogs have, shut themselves as if on purpose to keep in the tears, but she saw the dew squeezing out through the eye-lashes.

‘My poor boy, I’m sure it’s very bad for you,’ she said again.

‘Please, don’t speak so kind,’ said Paul; and this time he could not prevent a-sob.  ‘Nobody ever did so before, and—­’ he paused, and went on, ‘I suppose they do it up in Heaven, so I hope I shall die.’