Quieted in a measure by the cool demeanor of his companion, Dr. Clayton, too, arose, and after hurriedly pacing the room, resumed his post, and there on each side of Rose they stood, those two men, the one with his fair handsome face stained with tears, praying earnestly that she might live; while the other, with dark, lowering countenance and wrinkled brow, stood with folded arms, and firmly compressed lips, struggling to subdue the evil passion which whispered, “Let her die! There will be a comfort in weeping over her grave, and knowing that she sleeps there in all her maiden purity.”
In the meantime Jessie had been missed, and a servant dispatched to find her. But this the woman failed to do as she was then at Sunny Bank, and Mrs. Lansing was about venturing to go in quest of her, when she appeared with her uncle’s message, saying, “she knew Miss Lee was dying, she looked so dreadfully.”
“Jessie—child,” screamed the affrighted Mrs. Lansing, shrinking from the little girl as if she had been a loathsome thing, “Have you been there—in the room?”
Without any attempt at concealment, Jessie told what she had done, and when her mother exclaimed, “You are a dead child,” she answered fearlessly, “I am not afraid to die.”
Just then the negro, who had been sent to the village for the family physician, returned, bringing the news that the fever had broken out there the night before, and that in one family two were already dead, while a third was thought to be dying. In the utmost dismay, Mrs. Lansing now announced her intention of leaving the place at once and fleeing for safety to her brother’s plantation, which was distant about twelve miles.
“And leave Miss Lee alone? oh, mother!” said Jessie, beginning to cry, while Halbert, frightened as he was, remonstrated against the unfeeling desertion.
But Mrs. Lansing was determined—“she couldn’t help her at all if she stayed,” she said. “And the colored women would do all that was necessary; it wasn’t like leaving her alone with Dr. Clayton, for there were a dozen able-bodied females in the house to wait upon her.”
“And if she dies?” suggested Jessie; but her mother would not hear to reason, and urged on by Ada, who was no less frightened than herself, she ordered out the travelling carriage, which soon stood before the door.
She would fain have had her brother accompany her, but she knew it was useless to propose it. Still she would see him before she went, and her waiting-maid was sent to bring him.
“I’ll go. Let me go,” said Jessie, and ere her mother could detain her, she was half-way there.