"I'm not so brave. You don't know what I've gone through up here alone in the night, apart from the pain. I've been thinking about--it. C. J., I don't know, now, that I'm going to get better at all. I pray to, and I try to, but I don't know that I am. I say, don't hook it! I daren't say it very loud. You're the first I've said it to at all. It only came to me last night ... and it does seem hard lines. Look at the sun! With the window open like this, and your eyes shut, it's almost as good as lying out on the grass. Dear old place!... Why _have_ you hooked it? What are you looking out of the window for? They can't be coming yet!" But they were, as it happened, though that was not why Forrester had risen; nor had he answered when Kenyon heard the wheels. "What a bother, C. J.! There was something else I meant to tell you; must you scoot? Then come up after the umpires have been, and tell me what they say--yourself. You sha'n't go till you promise!" VI When C. J. returned, the sun shone into the room no more; it was afternoon. Kenyon was very white. "Well?" "Kenyon, they don't know!" "But they're still in the house. Why haven't they gone? What are they waiting for? Tell me, C. J. You said you'd tell me!" "Poor old Kenyon--dear old fellow!" faltered Forrester. "I promised to tell you, I know I did, and downstairs they've asked me to. Now you'll never feel it, Kenyon. They're going to do something which may make you better. You--you'll be put to sleep--you'll never feel a thing!" "When is it to be?" "This afternoon--very soon." Kenyon drew a hard breath. "You've got to be in the room, C. J.!" "Very well, if they will let me. But you'll never know, Kenyon--you'll know nothing at all about it!" "They _must_ let you. You've got to hold my hand right through, whether I feel anything or not. See?" "My dear boy! My brave old fellow!" "It's a bargain?" "I'd better go and ask them now." "Hold on a bit. How you do like to do a bolt! I wish this hadn't come so soon ... there was so much I'd got to tell you ... all what I thought of in the night. You know the game we had, the night before you went, last summer? John would call it Gentlemen and Players; poor old John! I remember every bit of it--especially that leg-hit. It was sweet!. Well, when Ethel got run out, and our side lost--ah! I thought you'd remember--I played the fool, and you told me not to grumble at the umpire's decision. You said life was like cricket, and I mustn't dispute the umpire, but go out grinning----" "I didn't mean that, Kenyon! You know I didn't! I never thought----" "Perhaps not, but I did in the night; and I'm thinking of it now, C. J., I'm thinking of nothing else!" VII Kenyon had rallied: nearly a week had passed. It had done no good, but it had not killed him.