CHAPTER XXIX.
"Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse."
The tidings of her son's illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at
Kerton Manor. I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived
I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she
had not been Guy's nurse for more than thirty-six hours.
The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very
differently from any other. There is a sort of fascination in the roll
of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape
from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes,
that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never
wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the
verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that
creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong
man.
There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of
delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their
doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to
the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also,
that there are secrets--secrets shared, too, by many confederates--to
which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew.
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