Rapidly the tidings flew, told in a thousand different ways, and the neighborhood was all on fire with the strange gossip. But little cared they at Spring Bank for the storm outside. So fierce a one was beating at their doors, that even the fall of Sumter failed to elicit more than a casual remark from Hugh, who read without the slightest emotion the President’s call for 75,000 men. At another time he might have been eager to join the fray and hasten to avenge the insult, for Kentucky held no truer patriot than he, but now all his thoughts were centered in that dark room where ’Lina raved in mad delirium, controlled only by his or Alice’s voice, and quiet only when one of them was with her. Tenderer than a brother was Hugh to the raving creature, staying by her so patiently and uncomplainingly that none save Alice ever guessed how he longed to be free and join in the search for Adah, which had as yet proved fruitless. Night after night, day after day, ’Lina grew worse, until at last there was no hope, and the council of physicians summoned to her side, said that she would die. Still she lingered on, and the fever abated at last, the eyes were not so fearfully bright, while the wild ravings were hushed, and ’Lina lay quietly upon her pillow. “Do you know me?” Alice asked, bending gently over her, while Hugh, from the other side of the bed, leaned eagerly forward for the reply. “Yes, but where am I? This is not New York. Have I—am I sick, very sick?” and ’Lina’s eyes took a terrified expression as she read the truth in Alice’s face. “I am not going to _die_, am I?” she continued, casting upon Alice a look which would have wrung out the truth, even if Alice had been disposed to withhold it, which she was not. “You are very sick,” she answered, “and though we hope for the best, the doctor does not encourage us much. Are you willing to die, ’Lina?” Neither Hugh nor Alice ever forgot the tone of ’Lina’s voice as she replied, “Willing? _No!_” or the expression of her face, as she turned it to the wall, and motioned them to leave her. For two days after that she neither spoke nor gave other token of interest in any thing passing around her, but at the expiration of that time, as Alice sat by her, she suddenly exclaimed, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. I wish he had said that some other way, for if that means we can not be forgiven until we forgive every body, there’s no hope for me, for I cannot, _I will not_ forgive that servant for being my mother, neither will I forgive Adah Hastings for having crossed my path. If she had never seen the doctor I should have been his wife, and never have know who or what I was. I hate them both, so you need not pray for me. I heard you last night, but it’s no use. I can’t forgive.”