"So everyone said, sir," replied my father, "but—but he had been ailing for some time before."
"What was his complaint before he caught this disease?" I asked.
"Ah! sir, that's just the point," answered my father. "I sadly fear that it was an epidemic of a more dangerous sort."
"How so?" asked I. "What do you mean?"
"Well, sir, my real opinion is now that the young man was too strongly attached to a maid whom he couldn't marry, and that undermined his health. Then came the epidemic, which he had not sufficient strength to shake off."
"Ah!" said I, "and why could he not marry her? Was the maid unrelenting?"
"Not that, exactly, sir. Indeed, I believe she was as much in love with him, but——"
"But what?"
"Well, the fact of the matter is, sir, the girl's father and I ain't friends, and neither of us was willing to give our consent. The girl was sent off by her father to live at her aunt's, just to get her out of my son's way. I knew all about this, but I wasn't going to tell the young man, lest he should take it into his head to run after her, so, thinking to blunt his passion, I invented the story of her death, saying that she had been carried off by the epidemic, hoping that after a time, finding she was no more, that he would cease to think of her. But instead of that, he grew worse and worse, and I attribute his death to the lie I told about his sweetheart's decease."