Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

170 THE MASTEll OF BALLANTIIAE.
but equal ; every day liis appetite improved ; every
week we were able to remark an increase both of
strength and flesh; and before the end of the mouth
he was out of bed and had even begun to be carried in
his chair upon the terrace.
It was perhaps at this time that Mrs. Henry and I
were the most uneasy in mind. Apprehension for his
days was at an end ; and a worse fear succeeded. Every
day we drew consciously nearer to a day of reckoning ;
and the days passed on^ and still there was nothiug.
]\Ir. Henry bettered in strength, he held long talks with
i;s on a great diversity of subjects, his father came and
sat with him and went again ; and still there was no
reference to the late tragedy or to the former troubles
which had brought it on. Did he remember, and conceal
his dreadful knowledge ? or was the whole blotted from
his mind ? This was the problem that kept us watching
and trembling all day when we were in his company
and held ns awake at night when we were in our lonely
beds. We knew not even which alternative to hope for,
both appearing so unnatural and pointing so directly
to an unsound brain. Once this fear offered, I observed
his conduct with sedulous particularity. Something of
the child he exhibited : a cheerfulness quite foreign to
his previous character, an interest readily aroused, and
then very tenacious, in small matters which he had
heretofore despised. When he was stricken down, I was
his only couddant, and I may sny his only friend^ and