Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/248

236 cold: that was clear. Perhaps it was nothing more: perhaps again it was; perhaps even it might develop into congestion of the lungs. She seemed in rather a low state of health; but he would see her again in a few days, on Saturday, and then he should be able to tell me if there was anything. I said: 'Thank you; very well, be it so. My name is Leicester. We shall probably be staying here for some little time.'

And so we parted.

Rosy spent a bad night with the coughing. She did not care to go out, although the day was delightfully sunnily warm, but stayed in an easy-chair by the open window looking over the blue winding sea-y river and the girdling mountains, all set in the deep blue enamelled firmament. I left her with a book for an hour in the morning and went down on to the shore; and again, late in the afternoon. Her cough grew worse towards evening, and at last it struck me to go out and get her some sweets to suck to try and stop it. I brought in a large packet of divers sorts, which pleased her: and we sat by the fire, which she had wished should be lit, and talked quietly and happily about ourselves in the past.

This night was worse than the last, and the next day than that which preceded it; and so with the next night. Two or three times during this last after a long fit of convulsive coughing, she brought up some sticky, rusty-coloured stuff, with thin streaks of blood in it, that I examined in the candle-light, and having examined, felt a renewal of that indefinable fear that had entered me when all her body heaved before the sound of the cough came as a relief to it. As I lay back, wondering about this, she all at once said:

'I think, dear, I 'm going to die.'

I was startled.

After a pause:

'What makes you think that?' I said.

After another pause:

'I wanted to die! I knew I was catching it all the while, and I didn't care: I didn't stop it a bit! That