"I go to Father Paul," answered Raymond, without hesitation, as one who has thought the matter well out beforehand. "Wherever the need is sorest, the peril greatest, there will Father Paul be found. And the Brotherhood stands in the heart of the smitten regions; wherefore at his very doors the sick will be lying, untended perchance and unassoiled, save in those places whither he can go. I fare forth at sunrising tomorrow, to seek and to find him. He will give me work, he will let me toil beside him; better than that I ask not."
John had risen from his seat. An answering light had sprung to his eyes as he had heard and watched Raymond. Now he laid his hand upon his cousin's arm, and said quietly:
"Go, then, in the name of the Lord; I too go with thee."
Raymond turned his head and looked full at his cousin, marking the thin, sunken lines of the face, the stooping pose of the shoulders, the hectic flush that came and went upon the hollow cheek; and seeing this and knowing what it betokened, he linked his arm within John's and commenced walking up and down the room with him, as though inaction were impossible at such a moment. And as he walked he talked.
"Good John," he said, "I would fain have thee with me; but I well know thou hast no strength for the task thou hast set thyself. Even the long day's ride would weary thy frame so sorely that thou wouldst fall an easy victim to the sickness ere thou hadst done aught to help another. Thou hast thy father, thy mother, and thy good uncle to think of. How sad would they be to hear whither thou hadst gone! And then, my cousin, it may well be that for thee there is other work, and work for which thou canst better prepare thyself here than in any other place. I have thought of thee as well as of myself as I have ridden homeward this day. Shall I tell thee what my thought -- my dream of thee was like?"
"Ay, tell me; I would gladly hear."
"I saw in my spirit the advance of this terrible Black Death; I saw it come to this very place. Dead and dying, cast out of their homes by those who would neither bury the one nor tend the other, were left lying in the streets around, and a deadly fear was upon all the place. And then I saw a man step forth amongst these miserable wretches, and the man had thy face, dear cousin. And he came forward and said to those who were yet willing to touch the sick, 'Carry them into my house; I have a place made ready for them. Bring them to my house; there they will he tended and cared for.' And then I thought that I saw the bearers lift and carry the sick here to this house, and that there they were received by some devoted men and women who had not been driven away by the general terror, and there were clean and comfortable beds awaiting the sick, and great fires of aromatic herbs burning upon the hearths to keep away the fumes of the pestilence from the watchers. And as the wretched and stricken creatures found themselves in this fair haven, they blessed him who had had this care for them; and those who died, died in comfort, shriven and assoiled by holy priests, whilst some amongst the number were saved, and saved through the act of him who had found them this safe refuge."
Raymond ceased speaking, and looked out over the fair landscape commanded by the oriel window of the room in which they were standing; and John's pale face suddenly kindled and glowed. The same spirit of self-sacrifice animated them both; but the elder of the pair realized, when it was put before him, how little he was fit for the work which the younger had set himself to do, whilst he had the means as well as the disposition to perform an act of mercy which in the end might be a greater boon to many than any service he could offer now. And if he did this thing -- if he turned his house into a house of mercy for the sick of the plague -- he would then have his own opportunity to tend and care for the sufferers.
Only one thought for a moment hindered him from giving an answer. He looked at Raymond, and said:
"Thinkest thou that this sickness will surely come this way?"