"So soon?" quoth Reuben, quickly; whilst Janet would not be denied her embrace, saying softly:
"I have no longer a fear of that distemper myself, for I have been with it erstwhile, and my aunt Dinah tells me that I have had a very mild attack of the same ill, and that I am not like to take it again."
"If indeed Frederick is smitten, we must take precautions to close the house," said Reuben. "Is there aught you would wish to do ere giving the notice to my father?"
"Nay, I was on my way to him," said Gertrude, speaking with the calmness of one upon whom the expected blow has at last fallen. "Let what must be done be done quickly. Can we have a nurse? for methinks Frederick must needs have tendance more skilled than any we can give him. But let it not be one of those women"--Gertrude paused and shuddered, as though she knew not how to finish her sentence.
"Trust me to do all for you that lies in my power," answered Reuben, in a voice of emotion; "and never feel shut up altogether from the world; even when the outer door be locked and guarded by a watchman. I have already hung a bell within our house, and the cord is tied here upon this nail. In any time of need you have but to ring it, and be sure that the summons will be speedily answered."
A mist rose before Gertrude's eyes and a lump in her throat. She pressed Janet's hand, and said to Reuben in a husky voice:
"I have no words today. Some day I will find how to thank you for all this goodness at such a time."
Before many hours had passed Dinah Morse was installed beside the sick man. Strong perfumes were burnt in and about his room, and the terrible tumours which bespoke the poison in his blood were treated skilfully by poultices and medicaments, applied by one who thoroughly understood the nature of the disease and the course it ran.
But from the first it was apparent to a trained eye that the young man was doomed. There was too much poison in his blood before, and his constitution was undermined by his reckless and dissolute life. All that was possible was done to relieve the sufferings and abate the fever of the patient. One of the best and most devoted of the doctors who remained courageously at his post during this terrible time was called in. But he shook his head over the patient, and bid his parents make up their minds for the worst.
"You have the best nurse in all London," said Dr. Hooker. "If skill and care could save him, he would be saved. But I fear me the poison has spread all over. Be cautious how you approach him, for he breathes forth death to those who are not inoculated. I would I could do more for you, but our skill avails little before this dread scourge."