I suffered no pain and I was quite happy, but I thought I was dying and did not care; why should I – I thought vaguely – if my boy is satisfied with me? Algy was by this time thoroughly frightened, and wrapping me in rugs and shawls gave me brandy in hot tea. But these things only revived me for the moment, and I relapsed again into a state of utter exhaustion. Then taking my cold hands in his, he buried his face on my shoulder and cried like a child. “Don't cry like that, Algy,” I said after a minute or two, “perhaps Eva might know what to do if you don't mind telling her.” He sprang to his feet at once. “What a brute I was not to think of it before,” he said and dressing as quickly as possible rushed from the room.
Then I became unconscious again, and the next thing I remember is Eva gently raising my head while she made me drink some salvolatile and water. Opening my eyes I looked up in her kind, sad face down which tears were now running and said: “Don't blame Algy, Eva dear, it was all my fault, I think I might go home now,” and then I went off into what seemed a dreamless sleep again. When I awoke I felt a little stronger and Eva and Algy dressed me. “Now, Phyllis, my love, we must carry you down to the morning room,” she said, “and tell the servants that it is sun-stroke from which you are suffering. It will not be necessary to have a doctor, as Algy and I have both been in India, and know what to do in such cases of illness.” No one saw us as they carried me into the morning room, and when Eva had closed the secret door in the old oak cupboard she rang the bell violently and the butler answered it immediately.
“Miss Phyllis has had a slight sun-stroke,” she said, “and must go to bed here at once. Tell Janet too get the little room next to my own ready while my maid takes up hot bottles and a dish of crushed ice.” The latter was not, of course, required for my head, as she wished it to be supposed, but to check the bleeding which had never ceased. Half an hour afterwards I was laid in a warm bed with a hot water bottle against my feet, and as Eva had undressed me herself after sending her maid away to get some beeftea, no one suspected my real condition. While I was taking the soup Eva told me that she would at once send a note to my aunt telling her that I was suffering from slight sunstroke, and that although there was no cause for uneasiness, I had better stay quietly at the Manor House for a few days complete quiet, and she would call and explain matters more fully the next day. After this I fell asleep. When I awoke a night-light was burning in the room and Eva in her dressing gown was sitting in a low chair by my bed. She gave me some more of the soup, and I begged her to go to bed but she would not hear of it, and I was soon sound asleep again. Next morning I was much better, though dreadfully shaken and far too weak to rise. Algy came to see me after breakfast and the poor boy looked wretchedly ill, and tears stood in his eyes as he tried to tell me in a broken voice how he would give his life to undo the injury he had done me on the previous afternoon; then he sat down by my bedside and taking my hand begged me once more to be his wife and he would live alone for my happiness. I soon became stronger, for Eva nursed me with the devotion of a little mother, but I remained with her three weeks, by which time Sir Harry had returned home and Algy had gone away on a voyage of two years. It was a sad, sad parting, but perhaps the best for both of us, for we still love each other above everything on earth. I must therefore cease to write to you on such topics as child-love, and this must be the last of my letters on the subject.
But if, as you ask me, I can pay you a short visit in Paris before long, I shall most gladly do so, and then perhaps you will let me sleep with some pretty innocent child-girl whom you wish to train in the art of love, for I still feel that there is no pleasure so great as that of awakening the lustful passions and sucking the first few drops of child-spunk from the quivering slit of a pretty little girl.
So till we meet my dear Marie, good-bye. I remain your own friend, Phyllis.