"Then I will go directly," returned Thaddeus "there is not a moment to be lost."
The poor woman thanked him. Hastening through the streets with an eagerness which nearly overset several of the foot-passengers, he arrived at Lincoln's-Inn-fields; and in less than five minutes after he quitted Mrs. Robson's door he returned with the apothecary.
On Mr. Vincent's examining the pulse and countenance of his little patient, he declared the symptoms to be the small-pox, which some casualty had repelled.
In a paroxysm of distress, Mrs. Robson recollected that a girl had been brought into her shop three days ago, just recovered from that frightful malady.
Thaddeus tried to subdue the fears of the grandmother, and at last succeeded in persuading her to go to bed, whilst he and Nanny would watch by the pillow of the invalid.
Towards morning the disorder broke out on the child's face, and he recovered his recollection. The moment he fixed his eyes on the count, who was leaning over him, he stretched out his little arms, and begged to lie on his breast. Thaddeus refused him gently, fearing that by any change of position he might catch cold, and so again retard what had now so fortunately appeared; but the poor child thought the denial unkind, and began to weep so violently, that his anxious friend believed it better to gratify him than hazard the irritation of his fever by agitation and crying.
Thaddeus took him out of bed, and rolling him in one of the blankets, laid him in his bosom; and drawing his dressing-gown to shield the little face from the fire, held him in that situation asleep for nearly two hours.
When Mrs. Robson came down stairs at six o'clock in the morning, she kissed the hand of the count as he sustained her grandson in his arms; and almost speechless with gratitude to him, and solicitude for the child, waited the arrival of the apothecary.
On his second visit, he said a few words to her of comfort, but whispered to the count, while softly feeling William's pulse, that nothing short of the strictest care could save the boy, the infection he had received having been of the most malignant kind.
These words fell like an unrepealable sentence on the heart of Thaddeus. Looking on the discolored features of the patient infant, he fancied that he already beheld its clay-cold face, and its little limbs stretched in death. The idea was bitterness to him; and pressing the boy to his breast, he resolved that no attention should be wanting on his part to preserve him from the grave. And he kept his promise.