"Your brother's a weak-minded young fool!" cried Poynter, who had now thoroughly become roused, so withering was the contempt written in Rich's eyes; "and--"

He stopped short, for in the heat of the encounter neither had heard the latch-key in the front-door, nor the opening of that of the room, to admit Hendon Chartley, who stood still for a few moments, and then strode to his sister's side and put his arm round her.

"Yes," he said hoarsely, "I have been a weak young fool, James Poynter, to let you play with me as you pleased; but please God, with my sister's help, I'm going to be strong now, and if you don't leave this house I'll kick you out."

"You kick me out!" snarled Poynter, snatching his handkerchief from his pocket and polishing his hat savagely; "not you! So it's going to be war, is it? Why, if I liked--There, you needn't threaten. I'm not going to quarrel with you, my lad, because we're going to be brothers."

"Brothers!" cried Hendon, in tones of contempt.

"Yes, my lad, brothers. I've gone the right way to work, and you know it, too. There, we're all peppery now. Rich, my dear, you know what I've said. I'm not angry. It was only a flash, and you won't make me any the worse for speaking out like a man. Next time I come we shall be better friends."

He gave his hat a final polish, flourished his handkerchief, and left the room.

"Hendon, Hendon, what have you done?" cried Richmond, as soon as they were alone. "Had we not trouble enough without this?"

"The cad!" cried Hendon angrily.

"And after what had passed you went to him again!"

"How could I help it?" said the young man, with a groan. "I owe him money, and it's like a chain about my neck. He tugs it, and I'm obliged to go."

"And he hinted that our poor father was in his debt."

"The governor? Oh, Rich!"

Richmond said nothing, but returned to her watching by her father's pillow, asking herself whether the chain was being fitted to her own limbs, and whether, to save those she loved, she was to become this man's slave.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE DREAMS OF A FEVER.

A dreamy sensation of cold and thick darkness and stumbling on and on, with a dull light glowing about his head and fading away directly, then more darkness and stumbling on, and once more a dull yellow glow, and this fading away, with the darkness increasing. Then a slight struggle, and a few petulant remonstrances.

Why wouldn't the doctor let him sleep?

Then another feeble struggle, a sensation of passing through the air, a sudden plunge into the icy water, and then utter darkness, and a noise, as if of thunder, in his ears.

But the sudden immersion was electric in its effect, sending a thrill through nerve and muscle, though the brain remained still drowsily inert, while the natural instinct of desire for life chased away the helpless state of collapse; and Mark Heath, old athlete, expert swimmer, man hardened by his life in the southern colony, rose to the surface, and struck out, swimming slowly and mechanically, as if it were the natural action of his muscles. On and on, breasting the icy water, keeping just afloat, but progressing blindly where the tide willed; on and on through the darkness, with the yellow fog hanging like a solid bank a few feet above his head, as if the rushing of the water were cutting the lower stratum away.

Now a yellow light shone weirdly through the mist, came into sight, and after glowing for a moment on the murky current, died away.

On still, as if it were the tide--that last tide which sweeps away the parting spirit--stroke after stroke, given mechanically; and then there was another light--a dull red light, then an angry glow--a stain as of blood upon the black water; and it, too, died away, but not till it had bathed the upturned face with its crimson hue.

Onward still, the icy water thrilling the swimmer through and through, but seeming to bring with it no dread, no sense of horror, no recollection of the past, no fear of what was to come: the sensation was that he was swimming as one swims without effort in a dream.

A blow from some dark slimy object along whose side he glided, and then on once more.

Another blow against something which checked him for a time, and turned him face downward, so that the thundering recommenced in his ears; there was the sense of strangulation; and then he was steadily swimming on once more, past moored barge with its lights, past steamboat pontoon; and then with a rush he was driven against a stone pier; his hands grasped at the slimy stones without avail, he was turned in an eddy around and around, sucked under, and rose again, to swim on and on, till at last, in the darkness, his hands touched the muddy pebbles of the river shore, his knees struck heavily, and he crawled through a pool, and then staggered to his feet, with the water streaming from him.

What next? It was all as in a dream, in which, in the gloom of the thick night, he stumbled upon a flight of slippery steps, and walked up and up, and then along a road which he crossed again and again, and always walking on and on.

At times he guided himself by mechanically touching a cold rough stony wall, till somehow it was different and felt slippery, and his hand glided over the side.

Then darkness, and a sense of wandering. How long? Where? Why was he wandering on?

It was all a dream, but changed to a time when his head was as it were on fire, and he was climbing mountains where diamonds glistened at the top, but which he could not reach, though he was ever climbing, with the sun burning into his brain, and the diamonds that he must find farther and farther away.

And so on, and so on, in one long weary journey, to reach that which he could not attain, and at last oblivion--soft, sweet, restful oblivion-- with nothing wrong, nothing a trouble, no weariness or care: it was rest, sweet rest, after that toilsome climb.

The next sensation was of a cool soft hand upon his brow, and Mark Heath opened his eyes, to gaze into those of a pale, grave-looking woman in white, curiously-shaped cap; and she smiled at the look of intelligence in his face as he said softly.

"Who are you?"

"Your nurse," was the reply.

"Nurse?"

One word only, but a chapter in its inquiring tone. "Yes," she said gently; "you have been ill. Don't try to talk. Take this, and lie quite still."

Another long, dreamy time, during which there were noises about his head--the gentle, pleasant voice of his nurse, and the firm, decisive voice of the doctor. It might have been hours, it might have been days or weeks, he did not know; and then came the morning when he seemed to awaken from a long disturbed sleep, full of terrible dreams, with a full realisation of his position.

He looked about him, and there were people in beds on either side, while a row of windows started from opposite to him, and went on right and left.

At last he saw the face of the woman whom he felt that he had seen leaning over him in his dream.

She came to his bedside.

"Well?" she said, with a pleasant smile.

"Is this a hospital?" he said eagerly.

"Yes."

"And I have met with some accident--hurt?"

"No," was the reply; "not an accident. You have been ill."

"Ill? How came I here?"

He looked wildly in the calm soft face before him, and behind it there seemed to be a dense mental mist which he could not penetrate. There was the nurse; and as he lay, it seemed to him that he could think as far as their presence there, and no further.