Julia then tossed the letter to her brother and sat down. "And what is it, then," she asked bitterly, and with knitted brows, "that you want me to do?" "I think, dear Julia," said her aunt, "the real question is, What is it your duty to do?" "Oh yes," she cried passionately; "my duty! Duty's a very fine thing. It's always `duty, duty.' But there are two parties to duty: has _he_ done his duty? He has beaten me, starved me, cursed me--is that doing his duty? And now I am to go and nurse him in a vile fever-smitten hole, and lose my life, and so deprive my children of a mother, because it's my duty. I don't see it at all." Both her hearers looked deeply distressed. Then Amos said, "Still he is your husband, and dying." "Dying!" she exclaimed sneeringly; "not he--it's all pretence. If anything common could have killed him, such as kills other people, he would have been dead ages ago. But he isn't like other men; he has got a charmed life. He'll be all right again after a while." "And you will not go to him?" asked Amos, calmly and sadly. "No, certainly not," she cried indignantly. "I've suffered more than enough already for him and from him. Besides, if you talk of duty, it is surely my duty to think of the dear children, and not run the risk of bringing back the fever to them, supposing I should not be killed by it myself." "Then," said her brother deliberately, "_I_ shall go." "You, Amos!" exclaimed both his aunt and sister. "Yes," he said; "my own duty is now plain to me. The poor man has let me know his case; he is my sister's husband, however unworthy a husband; he is dying, and may be eternally lost body and soul, and by going I may be made the means of helping on the good Scripture reader's work. The poor dying man's heart is softened just now, and it may be that when he hears the words of God's truth, and experiences kindness from one who has been treated by him as I have been, he may be led to seek and find pardon before he is taken away." "But," said his aunt anxiously, "you will be running a great risk of catching the fever, and may lose your own health, and even your life."