The boy's face was hot and flushed that afternoon, and he lay down a while, an unusual thing with him, but he had been up very early and out very long and riding in the breeze. All this might tend to make him drowsy. He had come as usual to tell his father all about Mr. Ray's march and the boy escort. A prime favorite and something of a hero was Sandy Ray among the boys about the post, and Jimmy did not know just why daddy seemed so uninterested. Perhaps he, too, was tired. After breakfast Jim had gone to see Aunt Marion, and returned disappointed, and, after an inning or two of ball, which he played but languidly, had come home for a snooze, and found daddy talking gravely with gentlemen from town who had been to see him before, and had queer-looking papers for him to sign, not a bit like the innumerable rolls, returns and company things he had to attend to when captain of a troop. Jim awakened only with difficulty and only when called. He had promised to lunch with Harold Winn, and went, slowly and heavily, but came back soon with a hot headache, and was again sleeping when the phaeton drove round for mamma and Félicie, and he did not know that this time mamma came not to see daddy before starting. He did not know that Miss Sanford came not to read. He did not know just what to make of things when he found daddy bending over him at sunset, with anxiety in his face, and young Dr. Wallen was helping undress and get him regularly to bed. Mamma and Félicie had come home before the usual time, and Jim never knew that, or what happened later, until very long after. But something, it seems, had occurred during the drive to greatly agitate mamma, and that evening her condition demanded the ministrations of both the physician and her maid. That night something further occurred that led to much more agitation and weeping and upbraiding and reproaches and accusations and all manner of things his father evidently wished him not to hear, for he firmly closed the door between their rooms. The doctor came a third time, and in the morning, burning with fever and caring little whither he went, Jimmy was only vaguely conscious that he was being gently borne down the stairway and into the open air, and thought he was flying until again stowed away between sheets that seemed so fresh and cool, and once he thought daddy was standing over him, dressed again in his uniform, and he was sure Aunt Marion had bent to kiss him, and then that every now and then Miss 'Cilla placed a slim, cool hand upon his forehead and removed some icy bandage that seemed almost to sizzle when it touched his skin. From time to time something was fed him from a tiny spoon, and all the time he was getting hotter and duller, and the lightest cover was insupportable, and he wished to toss it off--toss everything off--toss himself off the little white bed; and then, mercifully, Jim knew nothing at all but dreams for many a day