They would think him an effeminate fraud, these two
bright, active women and that alert, energetic man. A faint color came
into his cheek at the idea, and an uneasy sense that he had been in some
way foolishly imprudent about his health. Again, they might be alarmed
at missing him from the veranda; perhaps he had better have remained
there; perhaps he ought to tell them that he had concluded to take their
advice and lie down. He tried to rise, but the deep blue chasm before
the window seemed to be swelling up to meet him, the bed slowly sinking
into its oblivious profundity. He knew no more.
He came to with the smell and taste of some powerful volatile spirit,
and the vague vision of Mr. Bradley still standing at the window of
the mill and vibrating with the machinery; this changed presently to a
pleasant lassitude and lazy curiosity as he perceived Mr. Bradley smile
and apparently slip from the window of the mill to his bedside. "You're
all right now," said Bradley, cheerfully.
He was feeling Mainwaring's pulse. Had he really been ill and was
Bradley a doctor?
Bradley evidently saw what was passing in his mind. "Don't be alarmed,"
he said gayly. "I'm not a doctor, but I practise a little medicine and
surgery on account of the men at the mill, and accidents, you know.
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