ained, was not always as Mr. Prothero saw him now. His
illness came from a sunstroke.

He said, yes; he had seen cases like that in India.

"Then, do you think----"

She paused, lest she should seem to be asking for a professional
opinion.

"Do I think? What do I think?"

"That he'll get better?"

He was silent a long time.

"No," he said. "But he need never be any worse. You mustn't be afraid."

"I _am_ afraid. I'm afraid all the time."

"What of?"

"Of some awful thing happening and of my not having the nerve to face
it."

"You've nerve enough for anything."

"You don't know me. I'm an utter coward. I can't face things. Especially
the thing I'm afraid of."

"What is it? Tell me." He leaned nearer to her, and she almost
whispered.

"I'm afraid of his having a fit--epilepsy. He _might_ have it."

"He might. But he won't. You mustn't think of it."

"I'm always thinking of it. And the most--the most awful thing is
that--I'm afraid of _seeing_ it."

She bowed her head and looked away from him as if she had confessed to
an unpardonable shame.

"Poor child. Of course you are," said Prothero. "We're all afraid of
something. I'm afraid, if you'll believe it, of the sight of blood."

"You?"

"I."

"Oh--but you wouldn't lose your head and run away from it."

"Wouldn't I?"

"No. Or you couldn't go and be a doctor. Why," she asked suddenly, "did
you?"

"_Because_ I was afraid of the sight of blood. You see, it was this way.
My father was a country doctor--a surgeon. One day he sent me into his
surgery. The butcher had been thrown out of his cart and had his cheek
cut open. My father was sewing it up, and he wanted me--I was a boy
about fifteen at the time--to stand by with lumps of cotton-wool and mop
the butcher while he sewed him up. What do you suppose I did?"

"You fainted?--You were ill on the spot?"

"No. I wasn't on the spot at all. I ran away."

A slight tremor passed over the whiteness of her face; he took it for
the vibration of some spiritual recoil.

"What do you say to that?"

"I don't say anything."

"My father said I was a damned coward, and my mother said I was a
hypocrite. I'd been reading the Book of Job, you see, when it happened."

"They might have known," she said.

"They might have known what?"

"That you were different."

"They did know it. After that, they never let it alone. They kept
rubbing it into me all the time that I was different. As my father put
it,