IV

Forrester's disquieting apprehension of intrusion on his part, of that

cruel intervention from which he shrank, was not for long a vague

sensation. Mr. Harwood himself defined it, and with startling candour,

that very evening after dinner.

Forrester had described the latter part of his chat with Kenyon, the

part arising from something Mr. Harwood had said on the stairs, and

from that other thing which had long been in his own mind. "I wouldn't

have Kenyon, now I know what it is like," he had averred, with all the

earnestness he had employed upstairs.

"You wouldn't get him," said Mr. Harwood, in sad irony. "He will never

be well enough, Bodley is sure, to go to school."

"Is Dr. Bodley a very good man?"

"He is a very good doctor in ordinary, so to speak; but Kenyon's

case is not exactly ordinary. Bodley is getting down a London man, a

specialist, for a consultation. Kenyon knows about it."

"Yes, he thought it was to see whether he might get up."

"Whether there is the least chance of his ever getting up, as a matter

of fact. I don't myself think he ever will. There is some hopeless

disease of the hip. An operation is the only chance, and you know what

a faint one."

"I'm glad I'm here!" Forrester involuntarily exclaimed; and it was at

this that Mr. Harwood had pierced him with his eye and spoken his mind.

"I am glad too," said he, slowly; "yet I am sore--God knows how sore!"

The young man moved in his chair, but did not rise. Mr. Harwood held

him with his eye. Forrester leant his elbow on the table, his head

against his palm, and met that bitter, pitiable, yearning gaze.

"I am glad because Kenyon wanted you so much; sore, because he wanted

_you_ so much. Look at the reception he gave you, ill as he is! _I_

never make him like that. I might have left him for weeks, alone with

Ethel and the servants, and he wouldn't have welcomed me so. Yet I am

always with the boy. I do everything for him. I have been another man

to him, Charlie, since you were here last year. You taught me a lesson.

I don't know whether to like you or hate you for it. You taught me to

be my boy's friend--at any rate to try. It wasn't easy. We tired each

other--we always did--we always may. We irritate each other too: he

_will_ seem frightened and fight shy of me. I suppose I deserve it--God

knows! We have understood each other better, we have tired each other

less--I am sure--since he has been up yonder. But all the time, mark

you, he has been looking forward to your coming--to going to your

school in the end. About that he has talked incessantly--as if it were

the one thing to get better for--and about you. You're his hero, he

worships you; I am only his father. You are everything to him...."

Forrester was inexpressibly shocked and moved. "You are mistaken,

believe me you are!" he cried earnestly. "He has been telling me

already how good you are to him, of all you do for him."

"Ah! he is a good boy; he is very grateful. He always says 'Thank

you'--to me! Heaven, how I wish he'd forget that sometimes! But no; it

was in those little things that I was continually finding fault with

him, and now it's his turn. He has a special manner for me. He thinks

before he speaks when he speaks to me. And I see it all! Why, I stand

outside the door, and hear him talking to Ethel, and when I open it his

very key changes. With you it's a hundred times worse. With you--God

help me!" cried Harwood, with a harsh laugh, "I'm like a child myself

... jealous of you ... for winning what I never tried nor deserved to

win."

He wiped the moisture from his face, and sat cold and still.

"I'll go to-morrow!" said Forrester, hoarsely.

"You will do nothing of the kind," retorted the other in his normal

voice. "You will stay as long as you like--and Kenyon needs you."

V

C. J. was early abroad next morning--as once before. The weather had

cleared up in the night. Sunlight and dew did just what they had done

that other morning of yester-year. Sounds and scents were the same now

as then. So Forrester tried to imagine it _was_ then, and to conjure

Kenyon to his side. But Kenyon lay in bed behind yonder blind on the

sunny side of the house, and his friend wandered desolate over last

year's ground. He looked into the flagged yard where painted wickets

still disfigured a certain buttress: he was sorry he had thrown cold

water on "snob." On the lawn he saw other wickets, which no man had

pitched, and worn places that had long been green. There was the

peach-house, with the sun gleaming where once the rain had beaten

an accompaniment to "Willow the King." He could hear the song--he

can hear it still. Then he met John, who was visibly inconvenienced;

and returning to the house, he found Ethel on the steps. She looked

very fresh and beautiful, but the young man's heart was in the room

upstairs, where her heart was also. A common bond of sadness drew them

insensibly together. They remained there, very silent, till the gong

sounded within.

Something that Mr. Harwood told him, a letter in his hand, as they sat

down to breakfast, caused Forrester to run upstairs the moment they

rose. Kenyon received him with grateful eyes, but with a very slight

salute this morning. Sunshine flooded the room, even to the edge of

the bed. Things invisible in the dusk of the previous evening caught

the strong light and the eye now--the bottles, the graduated glasses,

the bed-table, the framed photograph of Kenyon's mother hanging on the

screen. And Kenyon himself, with the sun clasping his long brown hair,

and filling the hollows of his pinched face, was a more distinct and a

much more pitiful figure this morning.

"You know what's going to happen to-day, C. J.?"

"The doctors are coming--the one from London. Your father told me just

before breakfast."

"Call them the umpires," said Kenyon in a queer tone. "Say they're

going to give me in or out!"

Forrester made no remark. Kenyon lay watching him.

"You're perfectly right, C. J. I thought of that before. I thought of

it in the night. I had time to think plenty, last night!"

"Couldn't you sleep?"

"Not a wink in the night. I've slept a little since daylight."

"Were you--you were in pain, Kenyon!"

"Don't speak of it," said Kenyon, grimly. "It was so bad that I didn't

care what happened to me; and I don't care now, when I remember it.

I'm thankful the doctors are coming this morning--I mean the umpires.

Anything's better than last night over again. I've felt nothing like it

before."

"And you never will again, old fellow! I know you won't. They'll see to

that!"

"Will they?" Kenyon made a wistful pause. "So I thought up to last

night: I thought they'd get me up and out again. In the night I gave

up thinking so. I lay here, C. J., and asked only to be put out of my

misery. I never had such a bad night before--nothing like. I've had

my bad ones, but I used to grin and bear it, and think away of St.

Crispin's, and you, and the fellows. But last night----"

"Well?" said C. J. in a hard voice. His heart had smitten him.

"Well, you'd made me give up the idea of St. Crispin's, you know. Don't

look like that--it's just as well you did. Only I hadn't it to think

about in the night. I missed it."

He shut his eyes: he _had_ been thinking of St. Crispin's, but not in

the old way, no longer as within his reach. Ideals are not shattered so

easily by hearsay, and St. Crispin's was heaven to Kenyon still, though

now he might not enter in. Well, one would rather never get there than

find heaven imperfect too. And Kenyon, had he been older, would have

appreciated his blessedness in being permitted to lay down this ideal

unsubstantiated and as good as new; for not C. J., but experience only,

could have razed so solid a castle in the air; C. J. had only lifted

the drawbridge against Kenyon forever.

But Forrester was thinking of the night before.

"My dear fellow, you speak as though school were the only thing you had

to live for!"

"Well, it was the thing I wanted to get better for," replied Kenyon,

frankly; "one of the things anyhow. Of course I want to be up and out

here as well. I love this dear old place!"

"Do you want to get strong only for your own sake?" Forrester could not

help saying, gently. "Do you never think of Ethel, of your father? I am

sure you do!"

Kenyon coloured.

"Don't, old fellow! It's hard to think of anybody but yourself when

you're laid up in bed for weeks and weeks. But Ethel knows that I do

sometimes think about her; and that reminds me, C. J.; I was going

to ask you to play tennis with her, or take her out for a ride, or

something. She wants to come out of her shell. And then the governor,

he's so decent to me now, of course I'd like to get better for his

sake too. I think he'd make less fuss about the windows now--I'd like

to break another and see! But it's no good pretending I'm as sorry for

them as for myself, I _can't_ be."

"You are very honest," said Forrester, looking kindly into the great

bright eyes. "I wish all my fellows were as brave and honest as you!"

"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!"