On leaving Nettlefold, Miltoun had gone straight back to his rooms, and
begun at once to work at his book on the land question. He worked all
through that night—his third night without sleep, and all the following
day. In the evening, feeling queer in the head, he went out and
walked up and down the Embankment. Then, fearing to go to bed and lie
sleepless, he sat down in his arm-chair. Falling asleep there, he had
fearful dreams, and awoke unrefreshed. After his bath, he drank coffee,
and again forced himself to work. By the middle of the day he felt dizzy
and exhausted, but utterly disinclined to eat. He went out into the hot
Strand, bought himself a necessary book, and after drinking more coffee,
came back and again began to work. At four o'clock he found that he was
not taking in the words. His head was burning hot, and he went into his
bedroom to bathe it. Then somehow he began walking up and down, talking
to himself, as Barbara had found him.
She had no sooner gone, than he felt utterly exhausted. A small crucifix
hung over his bed, and throwing himself down before it, he remained
motionless with his face buried in the coverlet, and his arms stretched
out towards the wall. He did not pray, but merely sought rest from
sensation. Across his half-hypnotized consciousness little threads
of burning fancy kept shooting. Then he could feel nothing but utter
physical sickness, and against this his will revolted. He resolved that
he would not be ill, a ridiculous log for women to hang over. But the
moments of sickness grew longer and more frequent; and to drive them
away he rose from his knees, and for some time again walked up and down;
then, seized with vertigo, he was obliged to sit on the bed to save
himself from falling. From being burning hot he had become deadly cold,
glad to cover himself with the bedclothes. The heat soon flamed up
in him again; but with a sick man's instinct he did not throw off the
clothes, and stayed quite still. The room seemed to have turned to a
thick white substance like a cloud, in which he lay enwrapped, unable to
move hand or foot. His sense of smell and hearing had become unnaturally
acute; he smelled the distant streets, flowers, dust, and the leather of
his books, even the scent left by Barbara's clothes, and a curious odour
of river mud. A clock struck six, he counted each stroke; and instantly
the whole world seemed full of striking clocks, the sound of horses'
hoofs, bicycle bells, people's footfalls. His sense of vision, on the
contrary, was absorbed in consciousness of this white blanket of cloud
wherein he was lifted above the earth, in the midst of a dull incessant
hammering. On the surface of the cloud there seemed to be forming a
number of little golden spots; these spots were moving, and he saw that
they were toads. Then, beyond them, a huge face shaped itself, very
dark, as if of bronze, with eyes burning into his brain. The more he
struggled to get away from these eyes, the more they bored and burned
into him. His voice was gone, so that he was unable to cry out, and
suddenly the face marched over him.
When he recovered consciousness his head was damp with moisture
trickling from something held to his forehead by a figure leaning above
him. Lifting his hand he touched a cheek; and hearing a sob instantly
suppressed, he sighed. His hand was gently taken; he felt kisses on it.
The room was so dark, that he could scarcely see her face—his sight
too was dim; but he could hear her breathing and the least sound of
her dress and movements—the scent too of her hands and hair seemed to
envelop him, and in the midst of all the acute discomfort of his fever,
he felt the band round his brain relax. He did not ask how long she had
been there, but lay quite still, trying to keep his eyes on her, for
fear of that face, which seemed lurking behind the air, ready to march
on him again. Then feeling suddenly that he could not hold it back,
he beckoned, and clutched at her, trying to cover himself with the
protection of her breast. This time his swoon was not so deep; it gave
way to delirium, with intervals when he knew that she was there, and by
the shaded candle light could see her in a white garment, floating close
to him, or sitting still with her hand on his; he could even feel the
faint comfort of the ice cap, and of the scent of eau de Cologne. Then
he would lose all consciousness of her presence, and pass through into
the incoherent world, where the crucifix above his bed seemed to bulge
and hang out, as if it must fall on him. He conceived a violent longing
to tear it down, which grew till he had struggled up in bed and wrenched
it from off the wall. Yet a mysterious consciousness of her presence
permeated even his darkest journeys into the strange land; and once
she seemed to be with him, where a strange light showed them fields and
trees, a dark line of moor, and a bright sea, all whitened, and flashing
with sweet violence.
Soon after dawn he had a long interval of consciousness, and took in
with a sort of wonder her presence in the low chair by his bed. So still
she sat in a white loose gown, pale with watching, her eyes immovably
fixed on him, her lips pressed together, and quivering at his faintest
motion. He drank in desperately the sweetness of her face, which had so
lost remembrance of self.