"I must go on to Gattigo. I must get to Fred and Gilbert. I'm going to be ill," she said aloud. And she dressed herself with much difficulty, and made her way to the railway station named in Gilbert's notes.
How she remembered her route, as sent her by Gilbert, how she contrived to drag herself from place to place, and to keep her luggage together—but that is, I believe, easier in Canada than at home—she never could remember. Her head ached so dreadfully that the effort of moving or speaking was agony, and every now and then she lost all sense of her present surroundings and fell into a half-conscious state of fear and misery, only to be realized by those who have endured the slow coming-on of a bad fever.
She reached Gattigo at last. No Fred was visible, but Gilbert was waiting for her.
"Why, here you are, my brave girl," he said pityingly, "and, as things have turned out, I need not have hurried you so."
Janet caught at his arm to keep herself from falling, crying out—
"Gilbert—is he dead?"
"No, no; hold up, Janet. Why, the poor girl has fainted! Here, Brett!"—to a passing railway clerk. "Lend me a hand."
"Your sister that you were expecting? Ah, poor girl, no doubt it was a shock."
"I hadn't time to shock her; she took me up wrong, and thought her husband was dead. Help me, and I'll get her into my waggon and make tracks for home. I think she's ill by the look of her, and finding every one curious about her would make her worse. I must get her home to my wife; she'll manage her."
With his friend's help, he got Janet out of the station, and into his light spring-waggon, where they made her as comfortable as possible. She had revived a little by this time, and obediently swallowed something hot which Brett brought for her. But before they had passed over the fifteen miles of rough road which lay between Gattigo and "Old Man's Ferry," she was almost unconscious; and in that state she lay for hours. Even when this passed off, and she seemed more alive, she never spoke, nor looked as if she knew what they were doing to her.