This was certainly startling intelligence. Andy pitied the colonel, who had always treated him well. It occurred to him that his mother had passed through an attack of smallpox in her youth, and could take care of the colonel without danger. He resolved to consult her about it at once. CHAPTER XXI A MODEL WIFE Colonel Preston, returning from a trip to Boston, in which, probably, he had been unconsciously exposed to the terrible disease referred to, was taken sick, and his wife, wholly unsuspicious of her husband's malady, sent for the doctor. The latter examined his patient and, on leaving the sick-chamber, beckoned Mrs. Preston to follow him. "What is the matter with him, doctor?" asked Mrs. Preston. The physician looked grave. "I regret to say, Mrs. Preston, that he has the smallpox." "The smallpox!" almost shrieked Mrs. Preston. "Oh! what will become of me?" Dr. Townley was rather disgusted to find her first thought was about herself, not about her stricken husband. "It's catching, isn't it, doctor?" she asked, in great agitation. "I am sorry to say that it is, madam." "Do you think I will take it?" "I cannot take it upon myself to say." "And I was in the same room with him," wailed Mrs. Preston, "and never knew the awful danger! Oh, I wouldn't have the smallpox for this world! If I didn't die, I should be all marked up for life." "You haven't much beauty to spoil," thought the doctor; but this thought he prudently kept to himself. "I must leave the house at once. I will go to my brother's house till he has recovered," said Mrs. Preston, in agitation. "What!" exclaimed the doctor, in surprise, "and leave your husband alone!" "I can't take care of him--you must see that I can't," said Mrs. Preston, fretfully. "I can't expose my life without doing him any good." "I expose myself every time I visit him," said the doctor. "I never had the smallpox. Have you been vaccinated?" "Yes, I believe so--I'm sure I don't know. But people sometimes take the smallpox even after they have been vaccinated. I should be so frightened that I could do no good." "Then," said the doctor, gravely, "you have decided to leave your husband?" "Yes, doctor, I must. It is my duty--to my boy," answered Mrs. Preston, catching at this excuse with eagerness. "I must live for him, you know. Of course, if I could do any good, it would be different. But what would Godfrey do if both his father and mother should die?" She looked up into his face, hoping that he would express approval of her intentions; but the doctor was too honest for this. In truth, he was disgusted with the woman's selfishness, and would like to have said so; but this politeness forbade. At any rate, he was not going to be trapped into any approval of her selfish and cowardly determination. "What do you wish to be done, Mrs. Preston?" he asked. "Of course, your husband must be taken care of."