“’Tis the waiting-time will trouble ye, Reuben,” she said, in a matter of fact, quiet voice. “Th’ men are cowards when th’ fever comes, for that reason. If they could know i’ a day or so whether they’d caught it or no, they’d niver heed the danger, like. Women are used to waiting, and they’re bolder at these times.” “I’m coming in, mother.” “Nay, think ower it, lad! Think ower it! There’ll be six weeks o’ waiting afore iver ye know whether ye’ve caught th’ fever. Six weeks, Reuben! Plenty o’ men wouldn’t wait as long for a maid that was bonnie and well.” Reuben took her by the arms, and made a way for himself. “There, mother, ’tis done now, I take it. Lucky I told them down at Marshlands that I might or might not be home to-day. They’ll not sit up for me to-night, and to-morrow I must get a message down somehow.” Mrs. Mathewson and Gaunt stood facing each other in the living-room. If there had been enmity between them, they did not remember it; a grave silence held between them, for each knew that death lay very near, not to Peggy only, but to themselves. “There’s still a chance to go back, Reuben,” she said at last. “Ye may or may not have caught it by stepping into t’ house, and ye need say naught to nobody; but, if ye once go up into th’ chamber--an’ I see your eyes on th’ stair-door--there’ll be no return for ye.” A troubled moaning sounded from the room above, and Gaunt laid a hand on the sneck of the staircase door. “Maybe ’twould ease the lass if she knew I was near,” he said gently. “She willun’t know, she’s ower far gone, I tell ye! Reuben, my lad, have just a thought for yourseln.” He glanced at her, with his curious, new look of gravity and self-effacement, and went up the stair. The widow heard his step on the boards overhead, then a startled cry. She knew what the cry meant. The Peggy who had watched him win the fell-race, who had danced on Linsall Green, was not the lass who lay on the bed up there; for the fever laid ugly hands on the faces of its victims, and on their minds its hold was still more cruel. There were no wild outbursts of delirium, followed by intervals of sanity and hope; there was only the low, helpless muttering, the sluggish apathy, the denial of all power or will to find healing from any human ministry.