dizzy, but determined. This was as good a time as any. He ought to have gone before!

He trailed across the room in the big[94] flannel nightgown that hung out from him with the outlines of a fat old auntie and dragged down from one bronzed shoulder rakishly. His hair was sticking up wildly, and he felt of his chin fiercely, and realized that he was wearing a growth of several days.

[94]

In a neat pile on a chair he found his few clean garments, and struggled into them. His carefully ironed uniform hung in the closet; and he braced himself, and struggled into the trousers. It seemed a tremendous effort. He longed to drop back on the pillows, but wouldn’t. He sat with his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, trying to get courage to totter to the bathroom and subdue his hair and beard, when he heard Miss Marilla coming hastily up the stairs, the little coffee-pot sending on a delicious odor, and the glass of milk tinkling against the silver spoons as she came.

[95]He had managed his leggings by this time, and looked up with an attempt at a smile, trying to pass it off in a jocular way.

[95]

“I thought it was high time I was getting about,” he said, and broke down coughing.

Miss Marilla paused in distress, and looked at his hollow eyes. Everything seemed to be going wrong this morning. Oh, why hadn’t Mary Amber stayed away just one day longer? But of course he had not heard her.

“Oh, you’re not fit to be up yet!” she exclaimed. “Do lie down and rest till you’ve had your breakfast.”

“I can’t be a baby having you wait on me any longer,” he said. “I’m ashamed of myself. I ought not to have stayed here at all!” His tone was savage, and he reached for his coat, and jammed it on with a determined air in spite of his weakness and the sore[96] shivers that crept shakily up his back. “I’m perfectly all right, and you’ve been wonderful; but it’s time I was moving on.”

[96]

He pushed past her hurriedly to the bathroom, feeling that he must get out of her sight before his head began to swim. The water on his face would steady him. He dashed it on, and shivered sickly, longing to plunge back to bed, yet keeping on with his ablutions.

Miss Marilla put down her tray, and stood with tears in her 

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