Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/249

237 was because I wanted to die. But when I found how … I think God is going to punish me for it.'

I turned over, and kissed her on the cheek.

'Serious,' she said, moving her head a little and looking at me, Serious! 'Quite serious,' said I, beginning to smile. 'Quite serious,' and kissed her again and was silent.

That inspection of the handkerchief ultimately decided me at breakfast to go and find the doctor again: which I did, but he could not come till later.

Then Rosy was informed that she would have to go to bed again, and perhaps have to stop there a little. I at once suspected congestion of the lungs, whatever that precisely meant.

As the doctor and I went down stairs together I catechised him. He said that she had pneumonia. I inquired the precise meaning of pneumonia.

'Inflammation of the substance of the lungs.'

'Was it dangerous?'

'Sometimes.'

'Fatal?'

'Sometimes.'

'How long did it last?'

'Three or four days, in good cases; more generally a fortnight or so.'

I asked him a few more questions, and then he took up the word, and told me what would and what might be required to be done. And so we parted again.

I came upstairs to Rosy with a feeling as if there was going to be a species of campaign undertaken. The first thing to do was to find out if she minded leaving the hotel. She did not. Then I went out to observe the house that the doctor had recommended to me.

It was rather a cottage than a house. I liked it. It had a small garden, bright with flowers, in front of the dining-room, a long thin room with two garden-windows opening on to a little lawn. I came back with a description of it, which, having pleased her, sent me off to take the place at once; and back to brinsg her to it.