On reaching the prison he was too ill to walk
without assistance across the hall to the corridor or gallery where
prisoners are marshalled on their arrival. The prison warder, seeing at
once that he was a clergyman, did not suppose he was shamming, as he
might have done in the case of an old gaol-bird; he therefore sent for
the doctor. When this gentleman arrived, Ernest was declared to be
suffering from an incipient attack of brain fever, and was taken away to
the infirmary. Here he hovered for the next two months between life and
death, never in full possession of his reason and often delirious, but at
last, contrary to the expectation of both doctor and nurse, he began
slowly to recover.
It is said that those who have been nearly drowned, find the return to
consciousness much more painful than the loss of it had been, and so it
was with my hero. As he lay helpless and feeble, it seemed to him a
refinement of cruelty that he had not died once for all during his
delirium. He thought he should still most likely recover only to sink a
little later on from shame and sorrow; nevertheless from day to day he
mended, though so slowly that he could hardly realise it to himself.
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