"Very well," was all Fanny could answer, for the shock of seeing this man, whom she thought she had escaped, for a time at least, seemed to deprive her of all her remaining strength. She shut the door, crept back to the kitchen, and sank down on the chair as though she was about to faint. She sat there until she was startled by the imperative ringing of the front-door bell. She stumbled up the stairs, and opened the door to the doctor. He stepped in, and then paused on the mat to look at her.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "You are ill. You have no business to be here, my girl. Where is your mistress?" he added.
Mrs. Lewis came downstairs at the same moment. "She is better to-day, doctor; I am sure she is better," she said, in a tone of glad excitement.
"I am glad to hear it," said the doctor; "but we have another patient here, I am afraid. This girl has taken the fever, and must go to bed at once. Send her to her room, and I will see her there presently."
"Go to bed, Mary," said her mistress, in a blank, bewildered tone.
"I will come and look at you in a minute," said the doctor, speaking to Fanny as she crept upstairs. She was thankful, indeed, to be told to go to bed, and thought nothing of what might happen to her next, for she was now too ill to think of anything. She had only just crept under the bedclothes when the doctor and Mrs. Lewis came upstairs. The result of the doctor's examination, and the talk with Mrs. Lewis that followed was that Fanny was taken to a fever hospital a few hours later, and the next day she was quite delirious. Fanny's things were put together in her box, the new dress taken down from its peg and tumbled in with the rest, and they were all taken away to be fumigated.
The doctor had remarked that Fanny was a strong, healthy girl, and might soon be able to come back; but Mrs. Lewis had her own opinion about this. The poor woman was so bewildered as she thought of what she should do, now that Fanny was gone, that she entirely forgot that the girl had friends who ought to be informed of what had happened to her, and it was not until the following Sunday that the thought of this occurred to her. She was doing something in the kitchen about six o'clock, when there came a knock at the street door, and when Mrs. Lewis opened it, Miriam stared for a moment at seeing the lady, and then said—
"Isn't Fanny coming out to-night?" She spoke rather aggressively, for she had been disappointed the previous Sunday.
"Oh, you mean Mary, I suppose?" said Mrs. Lewis. "Do you know where her mother and father live?" she asked.
"Has she gone home?" exclaimed Miriam, quickly.