“Ah! now I am sure you must be ill,” she said, hushing the children; “who ever saw you cross before, my Whitney, above all things, to them?”
“They must not come near me—send them away, and go yourself,” he said, huskily.
“What! I—I go away?” cried the young wife, with a groan of indignation breaking up through her terror; “what can you think of me, Whitney?”
“For their sake—for your own, Myra,” he said, pushing her away; “child—child, it is the fever that is upon me.”
She looked at him eagerly, almost wildly; her pale lips fell apart and her cheek grew cold as snow.
“Take the children away,” she said, motioning backward with her hand to a mulatto girl who stood looking on. “Take them quite away into your own room, Agnes, and be still.”
The little ones went reluctantly and with tears standing in their wild eyes. It was so strange for them to be sent away when papa came in—then he looked so odd and stood so unsteadily on the floor, besides mamma was beginning to cry—they would go back and ask her what it was all about.
But no, the firm little maid held them tight and forced them, struggling, through the door. She knew what those symptoms foreboded, and a sudden dread seized upon her. Yes, she would save the little ones—that was all she could hope for—and away she dragged them into her own little room which was distant from the infected chamber.
Myra forgot her children, forgot every thing in the frightful symptoms that burned on her husband’s face, and shot fire into the hands she clasped and wrung in her own.
“O husband! my husband, it is not that—not the fever, God help us! You have been in the heat—you are tired out; a glass of ice-water and a little rest will drive this headache away.”