Certainly, as Madelaine had surmised, nothing was left untried which skill could suggest or riches procure. A famous London physician was summoned, regardless of cost, to the bedside of the child, and trained nurses watched unceasingly day and night, combating the fever that threatened to sap the strength from out the feeble frame. The horrors of that awful race against the tide, combined with the drenching sustained both from sea and rain, proved almost more than the boy’s body and mind could withstand. Again and again he screamed aloud in his terror, calling out that the waves had got hold of him, and starting up in his bed, he would try to escape from the clutches of the monsters he seemed always to have before his eyes, ready to seize him in their deadly grasp. When at length the frenzy passed away and reason appeared to be returning once more to the overwrought brain, the efforts of his attendants were still baffled by a strange restlessness which took possession of the little invalid and which all their care could not dispel. "He is always repeating the same words," said the nurse in charge, to Mr. Field, when he enquired anxiously for the boy. "I wonder whether you could give me a clue to what he means, so that we might know how to quiet him. Often in an illness of this sort the mind dwells on something that took place immediately before the fever came on." "What are the words?" asked Mr. Field. "He is continually saying ’I want to make him my friend,’" answered the nurse. "All last night he did nothing but moan out this one sentence. It was quite pitiful to hear him, poor child." Mr. Field’s heart smote him. "He was very disobedient the day of the catastrophe," he said. "Perhaps he is still thinking of it, and is afraid of my anger--I know I have sometimes been harsh with the boy. Do you suppose if I went to him and told him it was all right, that the fear would be allayed?" "It may be that," replied the nurse, "at any rate it is worth trying. There, do you hear him?" she added, as they entered the darkened room and advanced towards the small tossing figure on the bed. Vainly did the poor father stand at his son’s side and assure him of his love and forgiveness. The unnaturally bright eyes which were fixed upon him softened with no answering light, and to his distress, the weak voice took up once again its monotonous refrain. "Whom can he mean?" pondered Mr. Field. "I wonder if he wants the lad who was with him that dreadful afternoon. I remember Burns told me they had often played together. I forbade Julius ever to speak to him, but if anyone could do my boy good, I should welcome him, even if he were a chimney sweep." A polite note was at once written to Mrs. Power, requesting that Robin might be allowed to come up to Farncourt, in the hope that his little companion’s presence might satisfy the restless longings of the child.