She thought the
white river and the mountains and the villages and the crack of whips
were marching with her still.
CHAPTER XXXI
"THE MAN WITH THE GREETIN' EYES"
For many days she lay in a fever at the doctor's house, seeming
sometimes to know where she was, but more often not, and night after
night a man with a drawn face sat watching her. They entreated, they
forced him to let them take his place; but from his room he heard her
moan or speak, or he thought he heard her, or he heard a terrible
stillness, and he stole back to listen; they might send him away, but
when they opened the door he was there, with his drawn face. And often
they were glad to see him, for there were times when he alone could
interpret her wild demands and soothe those staring eyes.
Once a scream startled the house. Someone had struck a match in the
darkened chamber, and she thought she was in an arbour in St. Gian.
They had to hold her in her bed by force at times; she had such a long
way to walk before night, she said.
She would struggle into a sitting posture and put her hands over her
ears.
Her great desire was not to sleep. "I should wake up," she explained
fearfully.
She took a dislike to Elspeth, and called her "Alice.
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