Haldane found time in the enforced pauses of his journey to write a long and affectionate letter to his mother, explaining all, and asking her forgiveness again, as he often had before. He also wrote to Mrs. Arnot a cheerful note, in which he tried to put his course in the most ordinary and matter-of-fact light possible, saying that as a medical student it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

As he approached the infected city he had the train chiefly to himself, and he saw that the outgoing trains were full, and when at last he walked its streets it reminded him of a household of which some member is very ill, or dead, and the few who were moving about walked as if under a sad constraint and gloom. On most faces were seen evidences of anxiety and trouble, while a few were reckless.

Having obtained a carriage, he was driven to Mr. Poland's residence in a suburb. He dismissed the carriage at the gate, preferring to quietly announce himself. The sultry day was drawing to a close as he walked up the gravelled drive that led to the house. Not even the faintest zephyr stirred the luxuriant tropical foliage that here and there shadowed his path, and yet the stillness and quiet of nature did not suggest peace and repose so much as it did death. The motionless air, heavily laden with a certain dead sweetness of flowers from the neighboring garden, might well bring to mind the breathless silence and the heavy atmosphere of the chamber in which the lifeless form and the fading funeral wreath are perishing together.

So oppressed was Haldane he found himself walking softly and mounting the steps of the piazza with a silent tread, as if he were in truth approaching the majesty of death. Before he could ring the bell there came from the parlor a low, sad prelude, played on a small reed organ that had been built in the room, and then a contralto voice of peculiar sweetness sang the following words with such depth of feeling that one felt that they revealed the innermost emotion of the heart:

O priceless life! warm, throbbing life, With thought and love and passion rife, I cling to thee. Thou art an isle in the ocean wide; Thou art a barque above the tide; How vague and void is all beside! I cling to thee.

O dreaded death! cold, pallid death, Despair is in thy icy breath; I shrink from thee. What victims wilt thou next enroll? Thou hast a terror for my soul Which will nor reason can control; I shrink from thee.

Then followed a sound that was like a low sob. This surely was Amy, Laura's cousin-friend, and already she had won the whole sympathy of his heart.

After ringing the bell he heard her step, and then she paused, as he rightly surmised, to wipe away the thickly falling tears. He was almost startled when she appeared before him, for the maiden had inherited the peculiar and striking beauty of her mother. Sorrow and watching had brought unusual pallor to her cheeks; but her eyes were so large, so dark and intense, that they suggested spirit rather than flesh and blood.

"I think that this is Miss Poland," commenced Haldane in a manner that was marked by both sympathy and respect, and he was about to hand her his card of introduction, when she stepped eagerly forward and took his hand, saying: "You are Mr. Haldane. I know it at a glance."

"Yes, and wholly at your service."

Still retaining his hand, she looked for a second into his face, as if she would read his soul and gauge the compass of his nature; so intent and penetrating was her gaze, that Haldane felt that if there had been any wavering or weakness on his part she would have known it as truly as himself.

Her face suddenly lighted up with gratitude and friendliness, and she said, earnestly:

"I do thank you for coming. I had purposed asking you not to take so great a risk for us, but to return; for, to be frank with you, our physician has told me that your risk is terribly great; but I see that you are one that would not turn back."

"You are right, Miss Poland." Then he added, with a frank smile, "There is nothing terrible to me in the risk you speak of. I honestly feel it a privilege to come to your aid, and I have but one request to make: that you will let me serve you in any way and every way possible. By any hesitancy and undue delicacy in this respect you will greatly pain me."

"Oh!" she exclaimed in a low and almost passionate tone, "I am so glad you have come, for I was almost desperate."

"Your father?" asked Haldane very gravely.

"He is more quiet, and I try to think he is better, but doctor won't say that he is. Ah, there he is coming now."

A carriage drove rapidly to the door, and the physician sprang up the steps as if the hours were short for the increasing pressure of his work.

"Miss Amy, why are you here yet? I hoped that you and your little sister were on your way to the mountains," he said, taking her hand.

"Please do not speak of it again," she replied. "I cannot leave father and mother, and Bertha, you know, is too young and nervous a child to be forced to go away alone. We must all remain together, and hope the best from your skill."

"God knows I'm doing all in my power to save my dear old friend Poland," said the physician huskily, and then he shook his head as if he had little hope. "How is he now?"

"Better, I think. Dr. Orton, this is the friend of whom I spoke, Mr.
Haldane."

"You have always lived at the North?" asked the physician, looking the young man over with a quick glance.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you realize the probable consequences of this exposure to one not acclimated?"

"Dr. Orton, I am a medical student, and I have come to do my duty, which here will be to carry out strictly your directions. I have only one deep cause for anxiety, and that is that I may be taken with the disease before I can be of much use. So please give me work at once."

"Give me your hand, old fellow. You do our profession credit, if not fully fledged. You are right, we must all do what we can while we can, for the Lord only knows how many hours are left to any of us. But, Amy, my dear, it makes me feel like praying and swearing in the same breath to find you still in this infernal city. A friend promised to call this morning and take you and your sister away."

"We cannot go."

"Well, well, as long as the old doctor is above ground he will try to take care of you; and this young gentleman can be invaluable if he can hold on for a while before following too general a fashion. Come, sir, I will install you as nurse at once."

"Doctor, Doctor Orton, what have you brought for me?" cried a childish voice and a little girl, fair and blue-eyed, came fluttering down the stairs, intercepting them on the way to Mr. Poland's room.

"Ah! there's my good little fairy," said the kind-hearted man, taking her in his arms and kissing her. "Look in my pockets, little one, and see what you can find."

With delightful unconsciousness of the shadows around her the child fumbled in his pockets and soon pulled out a picture-book.

"No candy yet?" she exclaimed in disappointment.

"No candy at all, Bertha, nothing but good plain food till next winter. You make sure of this, I suppose," he said significantly to the elder sister.

"Yes, as far as possible. I will wait for you here."

They ascended to a large airy room on the second floor. Even to Haldane, Mr. Poland appeared far down in the dark valley; but he was in that quiet and conscious state which follows the first stage of the fever, which in his case, owing to his vigorous frame, had been unusually prolonged.

Without a word the doctor felt the sick man's pulse, who bent upon him his questioning eyes. From the further side of the bed, Mrs. Poland, sitting feebly in her chair, also fixed upon the physician the same intense searching gaze that Haldane had sustained from the daughter. Dr. Orton looked for a moment into her pale, thin face, which might have been taken as a model for agonized anxiety, and then looked away again, for he could not endure its expression.

"Orton, tell me the truth; no wincing now," said Mr. Poland in low, thick utterance.

"My dear old friend, it cuts me to the heart to say it, but if you have anything special that you would like to say to your family I think you had better say it now."

"Then I am going to die," said the man and both his tone and face were full of awe; while poor Mrs. Poland looked as if in extremis herself.

"This return and rapid rise of fever at this late day looks very bad," said the physician, gloomily, "and you insisted on knowing the truth."

"You ever were an honest friend, Orton; I know you have done your best for me, and, although worked to death, have come to see me often. I leave my family in your charge. God grant I may be the only one to suffer. May I see the children?"

"Yes, a few moments; but I do not wish them to be in this room long."

"Don't go just yet, Orton. I—to tell you the truth, I feel that dying is rather serious business, and you and I have always taken life somewhat as a good joke. Call the girls."

They came and stood by their mother. Amy was beyond tears, but little Bertha could not understand it, and with difficulty could be kept from clambering upon the bed to her father.

"Amy's naughty, she keeps me away from you, papa. I've been wanting to see you all day, and Amy won't let me."

The doctor and Haldane retired to the hallway.

There was an unutterable look in the dying man's eyes as he fixed them on the little group.

"How can I leave you? how can I leave you?" he groaned.

At this the child began to cry, and again struggled to reach her father. She was evidently his idol, and he prayed, "Wherever I go—whatever becomes of me, God grant I may see that child again."

"Mother," he said (he always called his wife by that endearing name), "I'm sure you are mistaken. I want to see you all again with such intense longing that I feel I shall. This life can't be all. My hearts revolts at it. It's fiendish cruelty to tear asunder forever those who love as we do. As I told you before, I'm going to take my chances—with the publican. Oh! that some one could make a prayer! Orton!" he called feebly.

The doctor entered, leaving the door open.

"Couldn't you offer a short prayer? You may think it unmanly in me, but
I am in sore straits, and I want to see these loved ones again."

"Haldane," cried Dr. Orton, "here, offer a prayer, for God's sake, if you can. I feel as if I were choking."

Without any hesitancy or mannerism the Christian man knelt at Mr. Poland's bedside and offered as simple and natural a prayer as he would have spoken to the Divine Man in person had he gone to him in Judea, centuries ago, in behalf of a friend. His faith was so absolute that he that was petitioned became a living presence to those who listened.

"God bless you, whoever you are," said the sick man. "Oh, that does me good! It's less dark. It seems to me that I've got hold of a hand that can sustain me."

"Bress de Lord!" ejaculated an old negress who sat in a distant corner.

"I install this young man as your nurse to-night," said Dr. Orton, huskily; "I'll be here in the morning. Come, little girls, go now."

"We shall meet again, Amy; we shall meet again, Bertie, darling; remember papa said it and believed it."

Haldane saw a strange blending of love and terror in Amy's eyes as she led her little and bewildered sister from the room.

Dr. Orton took him one side and rapidly gave his directions. "His pulse," he said, "indicates that he may be violent during the night; if so, induce Mrs. Poland to retire, if possible. I doubt if he lives till morning." He then told Haldane of such precautions as he should take for his own safety, and departed.

The horrors of that night cannot be portrayed. As the fever rose higher and higher, all evidence of the kind, loving husband and father perished, and there remained only a disease-tortured body. The awful black vomit soon set in. The strong physical nature in its dying throes taxed Haldane's powerful strength to the utmost, and only by constant effort and main force could he keep the sufferer in his bed. Mrs. Poland and the old colored woman who assisted her would have been totally unequal to the occasion. Indeed, the wife was simply appalled and overwhelmed with grief and horror, for the poor man, unconscious of all save pain, and in accordance with a common phase of the disease, filled the night with unearthly cries and shrieks. But before the morning dawned, instead of tossing and delirium there was the calm serenity of death.

As Haldane composed the form for its last sleep he said:

"My dear Mrs. Poland, your faithful watch is ended, your husband suffers no more; now, surely you will yield to my entreaty and go to your room. I will see that everything is properly attended to."

The poor woman was bending over her husband's ashes, almost as motionless as they, and her answer was a low cry as she fell across his body in a swoon.

Haldane lifted her gently up, and carried her from the room.

Crouching at the door of the death-chamber, her eyes dilated with horror, he found poor Amy.

"Is mother dead also?" she gasped.

"No, Miss Amy. She only needs your care to revive speedily. Please lead the way to your mother's apartment."

"I think there is a God, and that he sent you" she whispered.

"You are right," he replied, in the natural hearty tone which is so potent in reassuring the terror-stricken. "Courage, Miss Amy; all will be well at last. Now let me help you like a brother, and when your mother revives, I will give her something to make her sleep; I then wish you to sleep also."

The poor lady revived after a time, and tried to rise that she might return to her husband's room, but fell back in utter weakness.

"Mrs. Poland," said Haldane gently, "you can do no good there. You must live for your children now."

She soon was sleeping under the influence of an opiate.

"Will you rest, too, Miss Amy?" asked Haldane.

"I will try," she faltered; but her large, dark eyes looked as if they never would close again.

Returning to the room over which so deep a hush had fallen, Haldane gave a few directions to the old negress whom he left in charge, and then sought the rest he so greatly needed himself.