"At the imminent hazard of your own life, and the all but certainty of bringing the pestilence upon this plantation."
"All do not get the fever who are exposed to its influence; neither do they always spread contagion into the healthy places they chance to visit," reasoned the young man.
"The risk is too great," replied the master, curtly.
"Would you think it too great if your own wife were the one concerned, sir?" argued Valentine.
"Be more respectful, sirrah! There is some difference, I should say!" retorted the master, angrily.
"Yes, there is a difference!" cried Valentine; "and when I see anything to respect——" Suddenly he stopped. Swift as lightning came the thought that if he refrained from provoking his master now and came to him an hour hence, when he should be in a better humor, the prayer that he now denied he might then grant. Controlling his rising indignation, he bowed, turned abruptly, and went off.
"Impudent rascal! he was just about to say something that I should have had to knock him down for; and then he thought better of it, and stopped—it's well he did! Poor fellow, I am sorry for him, too; but it is all his own fault! If he were not so presumptuous, he would not feel so badly. That is the very deuce of it; for that prevents him from seeing that there is a difference." Such were the reflections of Mr. Waring as he continued to pace up and down the front piazza.
Valentine has mastered his anger, but he could not control the terrible anxiety that preyed upon his heart; Fannie suffering, Fannie dying, deserted, alone; little Coralie perishing from neglect—these were the torturing visions that maddened his brain.
He went and told Phædra, who wept bitterly at the sad story; but yet sought to comfort her son, and inspire hope, by promising to go herself and tell Mrs. Waring, and get her to intercede with her husband for Valentine.
This was done, but with little success; for, though Mrs. Waring was moved to compassion, and went to her husband and besought him to take compassion upon Valentine and send him to seek his sick wife and trust in Providence to avert all evil consequences, Mr. Waring was not only firm in his refusal, but also exhibited no small degree of impatience at her interference. Unwilling to inflict a hopeless disappointment upon the poor fellow, Mrs. Waring tempered the report of her ill-success by saying that, though Mr. Waring had now refused her petition, she still hoped that he would think better of it and grant the permit.