The hours after that were a confusion of pain and weariness, a succession of deep sleeps and sudden, startled wakings. Then presently Dorothy came out of a bad dream of being dragged down to the bottom of the sea by Cissie, and awoke to find a light burning, and her father sitting in an easy-chair near her bed, absorbed in a paper—or was it a book?
Her senses were confused—she did not seem as if she could be sure of anything; and there was something bothering her very badly, yet she could not quite remember what it was.
“Daddy, is it really you?” she asked half-fearfully. It was in her mind that she might be dreaming, and that it was not her father who was sitting there, only a fancy her imagination had conjured up.
Dr. Sedgewick dropped the paper he had been reading, and came quite close to the bed, stooping down over her, and slipping his fingers along her wrist in his quiet, professional manner.
“Better, are you?” he asked cheerfully, and his eyes smiled down at her, bringing a choking sob into her throat. The heavy sleep was clearing from her now, and she was remembering the big trouble which lay behind.
“Oh, Daddy, I can’t bear it!” she wailed.
“What is the matter?” he asked in sudden concern. “Have you pain anywhere?”
“Oh, I am all right; there is nothing the matter with me,” she burst out wildly. “It would have been better if I had gone down with Cissie, when I was so nearly done; it would have saved all the explaining that would have to come after.”
“What explaining?” he asked quietly, and then he dragged his chair closer to the bed, and leaning over her, gently stroked the hair back from her forehead.
She lay quite still for a few seconds, revelling in the peace and comfort that came from his touch. Then, wrenching her head from under his hand, she asked anxiously, “Daddy, you have seen the Head—do you think I shall win the Lamb Bursary?”
“I very much hope you will,” he answered. “The Head, of course, could make no hard-and-fast pronouncement, but there seems not very much doubt about the matter.”
Dorothy’s brows contracted—there was such a world of misery in her heart that she felt as if she would sink under the weight of it. “Oh, I wish I had not enrolled! I wish I had not come to Compton!” she burst out distressfully.