Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/27

 step was upon my arm, the bone of which snapped under his foot. Laura dismounted and was by my side in a moment, and seeing her expression of dismay I strove to reassure her by endeavouring to rise. The pain, however, was almost unbearable, and in spite of my efforts a sick faintness obliged me to give up the attempt. The situation was unpleasant enough; a mile from the house, no one in sight, not a tree for shelter, and the sun already pouring down a purgatorial foretaste of his infernal heat.

By a fortunate chance the house of one of the overseers was nearer than the planter's, and thither Laura went for assistance; returning in a short time with all the help necessary. I was carried home, and the overseer, who boasted some rude skill in bone-setting, brought me by a rough road of torture to a land of dreamy ease. Fever was the natural result of what I had undergone, and for some days after my accident I did not see Laura. I was journeying in a fantastic land of delirium, climbing perpetual mountains, descending endless valleys, tortured like Tantalus by glimpses of cool water which was never brought near to my thirsty lips, or still more by visions in which the draught I craved rolled like a stream of burning lava down by parched throat.

But it was not my illness alone that separated me from the dear presence of Laura. She also had been ill with an attack of fever, brought on by exposure to the sun that unlucky April morning; and when at last I was strong enough to meet her in her own room, I was startled by the change wrought in her appearance in so short a time.

It was during those days of convalescence that I fully realised the nature of my feelings towards the woman whose sympathy and gentle kindness had surrounded me with an atmosphere of peace and contentment which nothing from without could penetrate or disturb. It may be that my will had been weakened by illness no less than my physical strength. It is certain that for a time I made no effort against myself, and—though no word of love affronted the sweet sisterly affection which I well knew was all she gave me, or would ever give—I yielded unresistingly to the dear delight of her presence; and in the dim shade of my "lady's chamber" I felt like a soul that has won paradise by purgatorial pains and, in that calm haven, takes no thought of past or future.