“At this moment he caught diphtheria, and I sincerely hope he suffered abominably; but, needless to say, he hadn’t the decency to die. No one in the hotel was any the wiser. It was too early in the season, and the man had money, so ‘Helen of Troy’ nursed him in their particular part of the hotel behind a carbolic sheet, and we were told he had _bronchitis_. “My aunt is one of the most plucky and altogether delightful women I know, but she has a pronounced terror of infectious disease, and if she had guessed what lurked in that distant wing I might never be telling you this story. One morning as I was crossing the hotel lounge I saw the unpromising specimen of manhood in front of the bureau. He had quite recovered and was giving notice for his departure that day. He added that Madame could not accompany him; she had better be removed to the hospital, as he was unable to continue to offer her his protection. I heard him say this in the quick French, which he no doubt calculated could hardly reach the intelligence of an English miss. Then I went over to the bureau and told the manager that I would be responsible for Madame, and that I would nurse her and undertake her expenses. He seemed very unwilling to accept my offer, and finally under promise of secrecy he told me the nature of the trouble. There was no one in the hotel but ourselves. I told my aunt what I intended to do, and that as bronchitis was occasionally infectious I should not come out of my patient’s room for some weeks. (Did I ever tell you that I had worked previously in a London hospital for a year? I meant to be a nurse, but my throat wasn’t strong enough, so I never finished my training.) Well, my aunt appealed to my common sense, to my affection for her, and finally to her authority; and then I kissed her and reminded her that she had always told me to consider my life my personal property, and how long Helen of Troy’s eyelashes were, and what an ineffable brute the man must have been. She said I was a suicidal idiot, and that I could send her a daily message. But of course I never did, because you might be able to carry that kind of bronchitis in notes. “Well, the end of the story was that my aunt met the doctor, and whether she had had her suspicions or not before, I don’t know, but the doctor couldn’t stand against her; she got the truth out of him, left the hotel in a panic, and wired to me to leave instantly, get quarantined somewhere, and then join her.