Finally he came to what he would have considered a lucid interval, had it
not appeared that Helen Sherwood was whispering to Tom Meredith at the
foot of his bed. This he knew to be a fictitious presentation of his
fever, for was she not by this time away and away for foreign lands? And,
also, Tom Meredith was a slim young thing, and not the middle-aged youth
with an undeniable stomach and a baldish head, who, by the grotesque
necromancy of his hallucinations, assumed a preposterous likeness to his
old friend. He waved his hand to the figures and they vanished like
figments of a dream; but all the same the vision had been realistic enough
for the lady to look exquisitely pretty. No one could help wishing to stay
in a world which contained as charming a picture as that.
And then, too quickly, the moment of clearness passed; and he was troubled
about the "Herald," beseeching those near him to put copies of the paper
in his hands, threatening angrily to believe they were deceiving him, that
his paper had suspended, if the three issues of the week were not
instantly produced. What did they mean by keeping the truth from him? He
knew the "Herald" had not come out. Who was there to get it out in his
absence? He raised himself on his elbow and struggled to be up; and they
had hard work to quiet him.
But the next night Meredith waited near his bedside, haggard and
dishevelled.
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