Methodist Church (Great Britain) -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
'Yes, I did. All through the day it felt to me as though some great
change were coming. I did not know what it was, and the curtain which
hid the past was as black as ever, but I had a kind of feeling that
everything was hanging as in a balance, that--that--eh, mother, it is
good to see you! to know you, to--to--have a past! It was just like
this,' he went on: 'when I came downstairs, and saw George St. Mabyn, I
felt that the curtain was getting thinner. I remembered Maurice St.
Mabyn,--it was only dimly, and I could not call to mind what happened
to him; but something impelled me to speak to him.'
'Don't talk about it any more, old fellow,' I said; 'you are not well
enough yet. To-morrow, after you have had a good night's rest,
everything will seem normal and natural.'
'It is normal and natural now,' he laughed; 'besides, it does me good
to talk about it to you. It is not as though you were a stranger.'
'No,' cried his mother, 'he has told us all about you, sir, and what
you did for him.'
'Perhaps, after all,' went on Edgecumbe, 'I had better not talk any
more to-night. You--you think I'll be all right in the morning, don't
you? And I am feeling tired and sleepy. Besides, I feel like a kid
again;--the idea of going to bed with the little mother holding my hand
makes me think of----'
'There now, old man,' I interrupted, 'let me go with you to your room.
You are a bit shaky, you know, and you must look upon me as a stern
male nurse.'
Half an hour later, when I left him, he was lying in bed, and as he had
said, his mother sat by his side, holding his hand, while Lord Carbis
was in a chair close by, watching his son with eager, anxious eyes.
After a few words with Sir Thomas, I made my way to the village of
South Petherwin to find the doctor. Truth to tell, I felt more than a
little anxious, and although I had persuaded Edgecumbe that when
morning came everything would be well, I dreaded his awakening.
As good fortune would have it, I found the doctor at home, who listened
with great eagerness and attention to my story.
'It is the strangest thing I have ever heard of,' he said, when I had
finished.
'Do you fear any grave results?' I asked.
'Luscombe,' he replied, 'I can speak to you freely. I will go with you
to see him, but the whole business is out of my depth. For the matter
of that, I doubt if any doctor in England could prophesy what will
happen to him. All the same, I see no reason why everything should not
be right.'
Without waking him, Dr. Merril took his temperature, felt his pulse,
listened to the beating of his heart.
'Everything is right, isn't it?' asked Lord Carbis anxiously.
'As far as I can tell, yes.'
'And there is nothing you can do more than has been done?'
'Nothing,' replied the doctor; 'one of the great lessons which my
profession has taught me is, as far as possible, to leave Nature to do
her own work.'
'And you think he will awake natural and normal to-morrow morning?'
whispered the older man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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