The funerals were going about in Dallory. Dr. Rane\'s prognostications had proved correct; the fever was severe. It spread, and a panic set in.

As yet it had been confined to the poor. To those who for some months now had been living in despair and poverty. Some called it a famine fever; some a relapsing fever; some typhus fever: but, whatever the name accorded to it, one thing was certain--it was of a malignant and fatal type.

It possessed a somewhat singular feature: it had seemed to break out all at once--in a single night. Before the doctors had well ascertained that anything of the kind was in the air, before most of the public had so much as heard of it, it came upon them. The probability of course was that it had been smouldering for some days. On the afternoon that witnessed madam\'s departure from Dallory Hall--after the receipt of the telegram and the reading of Dick\'s letter--there had not been one decided case: in the morning no less than seven cases had shown themselves. After that, it spread rapidly.

Madam remained away. James Bohun was dead, and she stayed with Sir Nash. Matilda North, taking French leave, went up to join her without an invitation; she did not care to stay in the midst of the sickness. So the master of Dallory Hall was alone, and enjoyed his liberty as much as trouble had left him any capacity for enjoyment.

A week or ten days had passed on since the outbreak, and the funerals were going about Dallory. The two medical men, Dr. Rane and Mr. Seeley, were worked nearly off their legs. The panic was at its height. Dallory had been an exceptionally healthy place: people were not used to this state of things, and grew frightened. Some of the better families took flight, for the seaside, or elsewhere. The long-continued distress, resulting on the strike, had predisposed the poorer classes for it. It was they whom it chiefly attacked, but there were now two or three cases amongst their betters. This was no time for the medical men to speculate whether they should or should not be paid; they put all such considerations aside, and gave the poor sufferers their best care. Dr. Rane in particular was tenderly assiduous with his patients. In spite of that fatal letter and the mistake--nay, the sin--it involved, he was a humane man. Were he a successful practitioner, making his hundreds or his thousands a-year, as might be, he would be one of the first and readiest to give away largely of his time and skill to any who could not afford to pay him.

The last person whom the fever had attacked was one of the brothers Hepburn, of Dallory, undertakers, carpenters, and coffin-makers. Both were sickly men, but very steady and respectable. The younger brother, Henry, was the one seized: it was universally assumed that he caught it in the discharge of certain of the duties of his calling, and the supposition did not tend to decrease the public panic. Dr. Rane thought him a bad subject for the illness, and did all he could for him.

Bessy Rane stood in her kitchen, making an apple pudding. It is rather a sudden transition of subject, from sickness to puddings, but only in accordance with life. Whatever calamity may be decimating society around, the domestic routine of existence goes on at home in its ordinary course. Molly Green was pudding-maker in general: but Molly was hastening over her other work that day, for she had obtained leave to go home in the evening to see her mother: a woman who had been ailing for years with chronic illness, and lived at Whitborough. So Bessy this morning took the pudding upon herself.

Mrs. Rane stood at the table; a brown holland apron tied over her light morning gown, her sleeves turned up to the middle of her delicate arms. Hands and wrists and arms were alike pretty and refined. The apples were in a basin, ready pared, and she was rolling out the crust. Ever and anon she glanced at the kitchen clock. Her husband had been called out at four o\'clock that morning, and she was growing a little anxious. Now it was close upon eleven. It cannot be said that Bessy was afraid of the fever for him: she shared in the popular belief that medical men are generally exempt from infection; but she was always glad to see him arrive home safe and well.

His latch-key was heard in the door whilst she was thinking of him. Dr. Rane went straight up to the unused top-room, changed his clothes, and washed his hands and face--a precaution he always took when he had been with fever patients. Bessy put the kitchen-door open, that he might see her when he came down.

"Pudding-making, Bessy!" he cried, looking in. "Why don\'t you let Molly do that?"

"Molly\'s busy. She wants to go home this evening, Oliver, as soon as we can spare her, and will not come back until tomorrow night. She received a letter this morning to say her mother has at last taken to her bed, and the doctor thinks her very ill. I have given her leave to go."

"But how shall you manage without her?"

"I shall have old Phillis in. Molly has been to her, and she says she\'ll be glad to come."

Dr. Rane said no more. It was quite the same to him whether Molly or Phillis did what was wanted. When men are harassed in spirit, they cannot concern themselves with the petty details of domestic life.

"I was thinking, Oliver, that--if you don\'t mind--as we can have Phillis, I would leave it to Molly whether to come back tomorrow night, or not. If her mother is really growing worse, the girl may like to stay a day longer with her."

"My dear, do just as you like about it," was the doctor\'s rather impatient answer.

"Your breakfast shall be ready in a moment, Oliver."

"I have taken breakfast. It was between eight and nine before I could get away from Ketler\'s, and I went and begged some of Mrs. Gass. After that I went the round of the patients."

Bessy was putting the crust into the basin. She lifted her hands and turned in some dismay.

"Surely, Oliver, they have not got the fever at Ketler\'s!"

Dr. Rane laughed slightly. "Not the fever, Bessy: something else. The baby. It was Ketler who called me up this morning."

"Oh dear," said Bessy, going on with her pudding. "I thought that poor baby was not expected for a month or two. How will they manage to keep it? It seems to me that the less food there is for them, the quicker the babies come."

"That\'s generally the case," observed Dr. Rane.

"Is the mother well?"

"Tolerably so."

"And--how are the other things going on, Oliver?"

He knew, by the tone of her voice, that she meant the fever. Bessy never spoke of that without a kind of timidity.

"Neither better nor worse. It\'s very bad still."

"And fatal?"

"Yes, and fatal. Henry Hepburn is in danger."

"But he will get over it?" rejoined Bessy quickly.

"I don\'t think so. His brother will have it next if he does not mind. He is as nervous over it as he can be. I am off now, Bessy, up the Ham."

"You will be in to dinner?"

"Before that, I hope."

Bessy settled to her pudding again, and the doctor departed. Not into danger this time, for the fever had not yet shown itself in Dallory Ham. Scarcely a minute had elapsed when the door-bell rang, and Molly went to answer it. Mrs. Rane, her hands all flour, peeped from the kitchen, and saw Mr. North.

"Oh papa! How glad I am to see you! Do you mind coming in here?"

Mind! Mr. North felt far more at home in Bessy\'s kitchen than in his wife\'s grand drawing-room. He had brought a small open basket of lovely hot-house flowers for Bessy. He put it on the table, and sat down on one of the wooden chairs in peace and comfort. Richard had not returned, and he was still alone.

"Go on with your pudding, my dear. Don\'t mind me. I like to see it."

"It\'s all but done, papa. Molly will tie it up. Oh, these beautiful flowers!" she added, bending down to them. "How kind of you to think of me!"

"I\'m going to Ham Court about some seeds, child; the walk will do me good, this pleasant day. I feel stronger and better, Bessy, than I did."

"I am so glad of that, papa."

"And so I thought--as I intended to call in here--that I would cut a few blossoms, and bring them with me. How\'s the fever getting on, Bessy?"

"It is not any better, I am afraid, papa."

"So I hear. They say that Henry Hepburn\'s dying."

Bessy felt startled. "Oh, I trust not! Though I think--I fear--Oliver has not very much hope of him."

"Well, I\'ve heard it. And I came here, Bessy, to ask if you would not like to come to the Hall for a week or two. It might be safer for you. Are you at all afraid of catching it, child?"

"N--o," answered Bessy. But it was spoken doubtfully, and Mr. North looked at her.

"Your husband has to be amongst it pretty well every hour of his life, and I can only think there must be some risk in it for you. You had better come to the Hall."

"Oliver is very careful to change his clothes when he comes in; hut still I know there must of course be some little risk," she said. "I try to be quite brave, and not think of it, papa: and I have a great piece of camphor here"--touching the bosom of her dress--"at which Oliver laughs."

"Which is as good as confessing that you are nervous about it, Bessy," said Mr. North.

"Not very, pupa. A doctor\'s wife, you know, must not have fancies."

"Well, come up to the Hall to-day, Bessy. It will be a change for you, and pleasant for me, now I\'m alone; it will be like some of the old days come back again, you and me together. As to Oliver, I dare say he\'ll be glad to have the house to himself a bit, whilst he is so busy."

Bessy, wiping the flour off her hands, consented. In point of fact, her husband had proposed, some days ago, that she should go away: and she did feel half afraid of taking the fever through him.

"But it cannot be until tomorrow, papa," she said, as Mr. North rose to depart, and she accompanied him to the door, explaining that Molly was going home. "I should not like to leave Oliver alone in the house for the night. Phillis will be here tomorrow: she can stay and sleep, should Molly Green not return."

"Very well," said Mr. North.

So it was left. Bessy opened the door for her father, and watched him on his way up the Ham.

Dr. Rane came back to dinner; and found his patients allowed him an hour\'s peace for it. Bessy informed him of the arrangement she had made: and that he was to be a bachelor from the morrow for an indefinite period. The doctor laughed, making a jest of it: nevertheless he glanced keenly from under his eyelids at his wife.

"Bessy! I do believe you are afraid!"

"No, not exactly," was her answer: "I don\'t think \'afraid\' is the right word. It is just this, Oliver: I do not get nervous about it; but I cannot help remembering rather often that you may bring it home to me."

"Then, my dear, go--go by all means where you will be out of harm\'s way, so far as I am concerned."

Dinner over, Dr. Rane hastened out again, on his way to see Mrs. Ketler. He had just reached that bench in the shady part of the road at the neck of the Ham, when he saw Jelly coming along. The doctor only wished there was some shelter to dart into, by which he might avoid her. Ever since the night when he had heard that agreeable conversation as he sat under the cedar-tree, Jelly\'s keen green eyes had been worse than poison to him. She stopped when she met him.

"So that child of Susan Ketler\'s is come, sir!"

"Ay," said Dr. Rane.

"What in the world brings it here now?"

"Well, I don\'t know," returned the doctor. "Children often come without giving their friends due notice. I am on my way there."

"And not as much as a bed gown to wrap it in," resentfully went on Jelly, "and not a bit of tea or oatmeal in the place for her! My faith! baby after baby coming into the world, ............