onclusion,

"I have left the boy in a cabin at Belmullet; he is in a high fever, and
raving so loud that you could hear him a hundred yards away. I told
them to keep cold water on his head, and give him plenty of it to
drink,--nothing more,--till I could fetch our doctor over, for it will
be impossible to move the boy from where he is for the present."

"Glencore has been asking for him already this morning. He did not
desire to see him, but he begged of me to go to him and speak with him."

"And have you told him that he was from home,--that he passed the night
away from this?"

"No; I merely intimated that I should look after him, waiting for your
return to guide myself afterwards."

"I don't suspect that when we took him from the boat the malady had set
in; he appeared rather like one overcome by cold and exhaustion. It
was about two hours after,--he had taken some food and seemed
stronger,--when I said to him, 'Come, Charley, you 'll soon be all right
again; I have sent a fellow to look after a pony for you, and you 'll be
able to ride back, won't you?'

"'Ride where?' cried he, eagerly.

"'Home, of course,' said I, 'to Glencore.'

"'Home! I have no home,' cried he; and the wild scream he uttered the
words with, I 'll never forget. It was just as if that one thought was
the boundary between sense and reason, and the instant he had passed it,
all was chaos and confusion; for now his raving began,--the most frantic
imaginations; always images of sorrow, and with a rapidity of utterance
there was no following. Of course in such cases the delusions suggest
no clew to the cause, but all his fancies were about being driven out
of doors an outcast and a beggar, and of his father rising from his sick
bed to curse him. Poor boy! Even in this his better nature gleamed forth
as he cried, 'Tell him'--and he said the words in a low whisper--'tell
him not to anger himself; he is ill, very ill, and should be kept
tranquil. Tell him, then, that I am going--going away forever, and he'll
hear of me no more.'" As Harcourt repeated the words, his own voice
faltered, and two heavy drops slowly coursed down his bronzed cheeks.
"You see," added he, as if to excuse the emotion, "that was n't like
raving, for he spoke this just as he might have done if his very heart
was breaking."

"Poor fellow!" said Upton; and the words were uttered with real feeling.

"Some terrible scene must have occurred between them," resumed Harcourt;
"