“What is that?” said Edith, anxiously: “heard ye not a moan?”
They paused to listen; it was repeated; a low cry of infinite agony scarcely to be borne.
Sir Philip advanced to the edge of the pathway; there, low down under cover of an old, drooping tree of hawthorn, lay a smitten woman, writhing in the torments of the plague.
“Come not near me,” she exclaimed, as they stood together, looking down upon her in pity and terror. “Come not near me, I say, but let me die in peace. Ah! they say it is I who have carried it in my blood; they say it is I who have brought the poison to my little ones. I that would have died—would to God that I had died!—to save them from a pang—oh! the Lord have mercy; they say it is I—I when I came here to tend them, that have slain my children.”
And extending her arms with a wild cry, she threw herself forward on the grass, burying her face in her hands.
“What can we do?” said Edith. “I dare not carry her home; what can we do?”
“I will go to see, if there is any hope,” said Sir Philip, gravely.
She was moaning lower, and with an exhausted, feeble voice. He descended, and lifted her from the ground, while Edith stood leaning on the tree, looking on in anxious silence.
“She is saved,” said the young physician, as he laid the fainting, feeble woman softly back on the turf, and pointed to where the sharp edge of a flint had cut open a tumor in her neck. “Her violence and despair have saved her. I pray you hasten home, Mistress Edith. I will have her conveyed to some place of safety, but come not into this peril; ye have over many without this.”
“I will bring you help,” said Edith, as she turned quickly away.