"Bless you!" said Mrs. Weldon, when Paul had been looking round her premises, and heard with some astonishment the sound of a strong, clear voice singing in the bedroom above, "that's only Mr. Curzon singing hymns to my little Jenny, who's proper bad with the fever. She must have been sickening with it that night as you fetched her to the tree. Mr. Curzon seems like a parson, and doctor, and nurse, all in one. He come'd here late last night, and he took her temperature ready to tell the doctor this morning, and he's round here again now; and it's not as though he favours mine more than another's. He's just the same to every one who's bad."
And what one said all said, and Paul pondered on their words. May Webster had spoken truly when she said that this man lived in the hearts of his people. Sally delayed her departure for London for a few weeks when she found that she could be of great service in the village by going and lending a helping hand when the mothers got overdone with nursing, for it was chiefly among the children of the place that the fever found its victims. Twenty succumbed, and then there was a day or two when no fresh case was reported.
Paul met the rector one morning and stayed to congratulate him on the fact that the fever seemed to have run its course, that there had been no death from it during the last few days, and apparently no fresh cases.
"Poor little Jenny Weldon passed away this morning; I was with her when she died," said the rector. Then came a long pause, and he cleared his throat. "My Kitty was the last case; she was pronounced to have the fever last night."
"Kitty!" echoed Paul, with a face almost as white as Mr. Curzon's own. "Good Heavens! and I was the double-dyed idiot who brought that child Jenny Weldon to the treat. Kitty probably caught it from her."
"That is quite impossible to decide," said Mr. Curzon, with a sad little smile; "the outbreak has been almost simultaneous. But Kitty's life is in God's Hands."
Paul turned away with an impatient exclamation; he had no word of comfort to offer, for he had but little hope that a child so delicate as Kitty would recover.
"If Sally could help in the nursing of her, or I in fetching any delicacy the child could fancy, you know we are ready to help," he said.