Out beside his carriage he continued to me: "O yes, a nurse or patient may break that rule, or almost any rule, and the patient may live. I had a patient, left alone for a moment on the climacteric day, who was found standing at her mirror combing her hair, and to-day she's as well as you or I. I had another who got out of bed, walked down a corridor, fell face downward and lay insensible at the crack of a doorsill with the rain blowing in on him under the door--and he got well. As to Fontenette, all his symptoms so far are good. Well--I'll be back in the morning." So ran the time. There were no more new cases in our house; Mrs. Smith and I had had the scourge years before, as also had Senda, who remained over the way. Fontenette passed from one typical phase of the disorder to another "charmingly" as the doctor said, yet he specially needed just such exceptionally delicate care as his wife was giving him. In the city at large the deaths per day were more and more, and one night when it showered and there was a heavenly cooling of the air, the increase in the mortality was horrible. But the weather, as a rule, was steady and tropically splendid; the sun blazed; the moonlight was marvellous; the dews were like rains; the gardens were gay with butterflies. Our convalescent little ones hourly forgot how gravely far they were from being well, and it became one of our heavy cares to keep the entomologist from entomologizing--and from overeating. From time to time, when shorthanded we had used skilled nurses; but when Mrs. Fontenette grew haggard and we mentioned them, she said distressfully: "O! no hireling hands! I can't bear the thought of it!" and indeed the thought of the average hired "fever-nurse" of those days was not inspiring; so I served as her alternate when she would accept any and throw herself on the couch Senda had spread in the little parlor. XVII At length one day I was called up at dawn and went over to take her place once more, and when after several hours had passed I was still with him, Fontenette said, while I bent down, "I have the fear thad's going to go hahd with my wife, being of the Nawth." "Why, what's going to go hard, old fellow?" "The feveh. My dear frien', don't I know tha'z the only thing would keep heh f'om me thad long?" "Still, you don't know her case will be a hard one; it may be very light. But don't talk now." "Well--I hope _so_. Me, I wou'n' take ten thousand dollahs faw thad feveh myself--to see that devotion of my wife. You muz 'ave observe', eh?" "Yes, indeed, old man; nobody could help observing. I wouldn't talk any more just now." "No," he insisted, "nobody could eveh doubt. 'Action speak loudeh than word,' eh?" "Yes, but we don't want either from you just now." I put his restless arms back under the cover; not to keep the outer temperature absolutely even was counted a deadly risk. "Besides," I said, "you're talking out of character, old boy."