The Broad Highway

"Thank you, yes--much better."

"Then why do you hold on to the chair?"

"I am still a little giddy--but it will pass." And "Charmian

--you forgive--"

"Yes--yes, don't--don't look at me like that, Peter--and--oh,

good night!--foolish boy!"

"I am--twenty-five, Charmian!" But as she turned away I saw that

there were tears in her eyes.

Dressed as I was, I lay down upon my bed, and, burying my head in

the pillow, groaned, for my pain was very sore; indeed I was to

feel the effects of George's fist for many a day to come, and it

seems to me now that much of the morbid imaginings, the nightly

horrors, and black despair, that I endured in the time which

immediately followed, was chiefly owing to that terrible blow

upon the head.