"I heard them saying," said she, "that probably you had slept out in the open, and that you had been attacked by some serious illness which affected your head. Your head was very bad, anyway. It was bad during the whole time. Four people were hardly able to keep you in bed sometimes. But whatever it was that was troubling your brain, it is gone. You will soon be as well as ever you were. Go to sleep now for a bit, my dear. Don't talk any more for a while. Much talk would only do you harm. Sleep is what will do you good. Lie back now, my son, and see if you can get a good sleep, fine and quiet and sound." And she settled the pillow under his head. "There!" said she, "don't speak any more now for a while."
He closed his eyes, pretending that he was falling asleep; but instead of sleeping at all, he began to think. He had cause for thinking. Three weeks gone, if the words of the nurse were true; whereas he himself could have sworn that it was only three hours since he was outside on the hill, on the mossplot, talking to the barefooted woman! Whatever way he looked at the thing, he could not account for any more time in it than that. But then, on the other hand, what had made him so weak as he was? What had made him so thin? He was as weak, and as thin, and as much wasted away as a person would be who had gone through three months' illness! How could such a change have come upon his body and limbs in only three hours? If he had had so much pain and sickness and disturbance of mind as the nurse had said, was it not a very extraordinary thing that he had not the smallest remembrance of it? However heavily or
