A small knot of people, ourselves and others, had collected in the transept after service, waiting for one of the old bedesmen to do the honours of the cathedral, when the chanter came down the steps of the south aisle, after disrobing in the vestry. "Do you know who he is?" I said to Helen, who was standing with me a little apart. "No--how should I know? Except that he must be one of the minor canons." "He is Mr. Leafchild's rector." "Is he?" she eagerly cried, the colour coming into her face. And just then he chanced to look our way, and nodded to me. I went up to him to speak. "This is a terrible thing about Leafchild," he exclaimed in a minute or two. "What is it?" I asked, my breath stopping. Helen, who had slowly paced after me on the white flags, stood stock still and turned as pale as you please. "Have you not heard of his illness? Perhaps not, though: it has been so sudden. A few days ago he was apparently as well as I am now. But it was only last night that the doctors began to apprehend danger." "Is it fever?" "Yes. A species of typhoid, I believe. Whether caught in his ministrations or not, I don't know. Though I suppose it must have been. He is lying at his lodgings in Paradise Row. Leafchild has not seemed in good condition lately," continued the clergyman. "He is most unremitting in his work, fags himself from morning till night, and lives anyhow: so perhaps he was not fortified to resist the attack of an enemy. He is very ill: and since last night he has been unconscious." "He is _dangerously_ ill, did you say?" spoke poor Helen, biting her lips to hide their tremor. "Almost more than dangerous: I fear there is little hope left," he answered, never of course suspecting who Helen was. "Good-afternoon." She followed him with her eyes as he turned to the cloister-door: and then moved away towards the north entrance, looking as one dazed. "Helen, where are you going?" "To see him." "Oh, but it won't do. It won't, indeed, Helen." "_I am going to see him_," she answered, in her most wilful tone. "Don't you hear that he is dying? I know he is; I feel it instinctively as a sure and certain fact. If you have a spark of goodness you'll come with me, Johnny Ludlow. It's all the same--whether you do or not." I looked around for our party. They had disappeared up the other aisle under convoy of the bedesman, leaving Helen and myself to follow at our leisure; or perhaps not noticing our absence. Helen, marching away with quick steps, passed out at the grand entrance. "It is not _safe_ for you to go, Helen," I remonstrated, as we went round the graveyard and so up High Street. "You would catch the fever from him." "_I_ shall catch no fever." "He caught it." "I wish you'd be quiet. Can't you _see_ what I am suffering?" The sweetest sight to me just then would have been Lady Whitney, or any one else holding authority over Helen. I seemed responsible for any ill that might ensue: and yet, what could I do?