"Was it Mr. Heathcote?" said Anne, as the mules trotted down a cross-road and over a bridge, July keeping up with a long loping run. "Yes, miss; Heathcote's de name. I saw him, and moughty sick he looked." "What did he say?" "Fever's in him head, miss, and didn't say nothing. Senses clean done gone." Anne had not thought of this, it changed her task at once. He would not know her; she could do all that was necessary in safety, and then go unrecognized away. "What will he say?" she had asked herself a thousand times. Now, he would say nothing, and all would be simple and easy. "Dis yere's de place," said July, pausing. It was a low farm-house with a slanting roof; there was a light in the window, and the door stood open. Anne, springing from her saddle, and followed by Diana, hastened up the little garden path. At first there seemed to be no one in the room into which the house door opened; then a slight sound behind a curtain in one corner attracted her attention, and going across, she drew aside the drapery. The head moving restlessly to and fro on the pillow, with closed eyes and drawn mouth, was that of Ward Heathcote. She spoke his name; the eyes opened and rested upon her, but there was no recognition in the glance. "Bless you! his senses has been gone for days," said the farmer's wife, coming up behind her and looking at her patient impartially. "He don't know nobody no more'n a day-old baby!" CHAPTER XXV. "Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or tends with the remover to remove: Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom." --SHAKSPEARE. "Why did you not send across to the hospital at the mill?" said Anne. "Dr. Flower, receiving no second message, supposed that Captain Heathcote had recovered." "Well, you see, I reckon I know as much about this yer fever as the doctors do as never had it," replied Mrs. Redd. "The captain couldn't be moved; that was plain as day. And we hadn't a horse, nuther. Our horse and mules have all been run off and stole." Mrs. Redd was a clay-colored woman, with a figure which, cavernous in front, was yet so rounded out behind that if she could have turned her head round she would have been very well shaped. Her knowledge of the fever was plainly derived from personal experience; she explained that she had it "by spells," and that "Redd he has it too," and their daughter Nancy as well. "Redd he isn't to home now, nor Nancy nuther. But Redd he'll be back by to-morrow night, I reckon. If you want to stay, I can accommodate you. You can have the loft, and the niggers can sleep in the barn. But they'll have to cook for themselves. I shall be mighty glad to have some help in tending on the captain; I'm about wore out."