"Do you think I've got a pair of hidden wings?" she said, smiling, and looking gayly in his face.
"I am afraid so!" he said. "Do you feel quite well, now?"
"Yes, I believe so. Only, perhaps, we had better sit down. I think, perhaps, it is the reaction of so much excitement makes me feel rather tired."
Clayton seated her on the settee by the door, still keeping his arm anxiously around her. In a few moments she drooped her head wearily on his shoulder.
"You are ill!" he said, in tones of alarm.
"No, no! I feel very well—only a little faint and tired. It seems to me it is getting a little cold here, isn't it?" she said, with a slight shiver.
Clayton took her up in his arms, without speaking, carried her in and laid her on the sofa, then rang for Harry and Milly.
"Get a horse, instantly," he said to Harry, as soon as he appeared, "and go for a doctor!"
"There's no use in sending," said Nina; "he is driven to death, and can't come. Besides, there's nothing the matter with me, only I am a little tired and cold. Shut the doors and windows, and cover me up. No, no, don't take me up stairs! I like to lie here; just put a shawl over me, that's all. I am thirsty,—give me some water!"
The fearful and mysterious disease, which was then in the ascendant, has many forms of approach and development. One, and the most deadly, is that which takes place when a person has so long and gradually imbibed the fatal poison of an infected atmosphere, that the resisting powers of nature have been insidiously and quietly subdued, so that the subject sinks under it, without any violent outward symptom, by a quiet and certain yielding of the vital powers, such as has been likened to the bleeding to death by an internal wound. In this case, before an hour had passed, though none of the violent and distressing symptoms of the disease appeared, it became evident that the seal of death was set on that fair young brow. A messenger had been dispatched, riding with the desperate speed which love and fear can give, but Harry remained in attendance.