“Good patience, child—why, where have you been hiding all this while?” cried she. “And what on earth has been the matter with you?”
“I have been upstairs in my room, Aunt Susan, keeping my bed. As to the illness, it turned out to be ague and low fever.”
“Upstairs where?”
“Here.”
Jiff went out again; there was nothing to stay for. I followed, leaving Miss Timmens and Harriet to have it out together.
She had really been ill in bed all the time, Mrs. James and Roe attending on her. It did not suit them to admit visitors; for James Roe, who had fallen into some difficulty in London, connected with forged bills, was lying concealed at Willow Cottage. That’s why people were kept out. It would not have done by any means for Miss Timmens and her sharp eyes to go upstairs and catch a glimpse of him; so they concocted the tale that Harriet was away. James Roe was safely away now, and Louis with him. Louis had been mixed up in the bill trouble in a lesser degree: but quite enough so to induce him to absent himself from London for a time, and to stay quietly at North Crabb.
“Was it fear or ague that caused you to shake so that last evening I saw you here?” questioned Miss Timmens.
“Ague. I never got out of bed after that night. I could hardly write that letter, aunt, that Louis sent to London to be posted to you.”
“And—did you really see David Garth?”
“No, I never saw him,” said Harriet. “But, after all the reports and talk, I was timid at being in the house alone—James and his wife had not come then—and that’s why I asked you to let me stay at the school-house the night my husband was away.”