"Helen, pray listen to a word of reason! See the position you put me in. A fever is not a light thing to risk." "I don't believe that typhoid fever is catching. He did not say typhus." "Of course it's catching." "Are you afraid of it?" "I don't know that I am afraid. But I should not run into it by choice. And I'm sure you ought not to." We were just then passing that large druggist's shop that the Squire always called Featherstonhaugh's--just because Mr. Featherstonhaugh once kept it. Helen darted across the street and into it. "A pound of camphor," said she, to the young man behind the right-hand counter. "A pound of camphor!" he echoed. "Did you say _a pound_, ma'am?" "Is it too much?" asked Helen. "I want some to put about me: I am going to see some one who is ill." It ended in his giving her two ounces. As we left the shop she handed part of it to me, stowing the rest about herself. And whether it was thanks to the camphor, I don't know, but neither of us took any harm. "There. You can't grumble now, Johnny Ludlow." Paradise Row, as every one knows, is right at the other end of the town, past the Tything. We had nearly reached the house when a gentleman, who looked like a doctor, came out of it. "I beg your pardon," said Helen, accosting him as he met us, and coughing to hide her agitation, "but we think--seeing you come out of the house--that you may be attending Mr. Leafchild. Is he better?" The doctor looked at us both, and shook his head as he answered-- "Better in one sense of the word, in so far as that he is now conscious; worse in another. He is sinking fast." A tremor shook Helen from head to foot. She turned away to hide it. I spoke. "Do you mean--dying?" "I fear so." "Are his friends with him?" "Not any of them. His father was sent to yesterday, but he has not yet come. We did not write before, not having anticipated danger." "Why don't they have Henry Carden to him?" cried Helen in passionate agitation as the doctor walked away. "_He_ could have cured him." "No, no, Helen; don't think that. Other men are just as clever as Henry Carden. They have only one treatment for fever." A servant-girl answered the door, and asked us into the parlour. She took us for the relations from the north. Mr. Leafchild was lying in a room near--a comfortable bed-chamber. Three doctors were attending him, she said; but just now the nurse was alone with him. Would we like to go in? she added: we had been expected all day. "Come with me, Johnny," whispered Helen. He was lying in bed, white and still, his eyes wide open. The nurse, a stout old woman in light print gown and full white apron, stood at a round table in the corner, noiselessly washing a wine-glass. She turned her head, curtsied, and bustled out of the room. But wasn't he weak, as his poor thin hands clasped Helen's! His voice was hollow as he tried to speak to her. The bitter tears, running down her checks, were dropping on to the bed-clothes.