But neither that morrow, nor the next, nor the next did Willard Drummond go; for when morning came, they found him tossing in the delirium of a fever. In dire alarm, a doctor was sent for, who said he was ill from over-excitement of some kind, and was threatened with brain fever; but that with proper care it might be warded off.
Querulous as the good lady of the house might seem outwardly, at heart she was kind and motherly; and all her sympathies were aroused for the sick young stranger. She listened in wonder and pity to his wild ravings, from which she could easily gather that he was in some way connected with the dire event that was occupying every tongue—how, she could not tell. That he was of a station far superior to their own, they also could see; and with the most tender and unceasing care they watched over him night and day.
But with all their kind nursing, three weeks elapsed before he was able to leave his bed, and another passed before he was strong enough to walk about.
Of Sibyl and the rest he had heard nothing during all this time. All exciting topics they had been forbidden by the doctor to speak of before him; and that, as the one exciting theme of every tongue, in particular. In fact had they been willing, they had very little to tell, for they had few visitors from the outer world to their quiet little cottage.
One evening, as still weak and languid, he sat by the window, watching the sun sink red and fiery behind a dense black cloud, and thinking bitterly how, by the impetuous violence of his own headstrong passions, his own life had been similarly clouded, the lad Johnny came in, with wide-opened eyes and mouth, all aglow with some wonderful news.
"Well, Johnny, boy, what is it?" said his father, who sat, as Willard had first seen him, serenely smoking his pipe.
"Oh, father! I've just seen old Toller, from Westport," said the boy, excitedly.
"Well, lad, what's the news from there?" inquired his father.
Willard, too, looked around with a start.
"Why, he says people are crowding to it now, from every place; that every house is full of people come to see the woman hung."