“They nurse strangers and may not nurse their father!” “It is the rule, Francis.” Since it was the rule she had no recriminations to make; she bowed to it, accepted it, while I,--as soon as it became the rule, my first impulse was to rebel. Timorous as she was when he was there, now with unfaltering presence of mind she was preparing all that would be needed in case of misfortune, without ever ceasing to bend all her energies to ward it off. I felt shame for not having shared her anxieties and for having sought to separate myself from the community of sorrow. “The fever has diminished,” she went on, going over all the encouraging symptoms for our sakes and her own. “The first days he was delirious much of the time. He has been more calm since yesterday. He himself keeps track of the progress of his disease. I see, but he says nothing about it. This morning he asked for a priest. Abbé Heurtevant, whom he cured, came.” _He himself keeps track of the progress of his disease, and he asked for a priest_; the poor woman did not connect the two, so natural did it seem to her to ask the help of God. But I--how could I not connect them? And for the third time I distinctly felt the danger. We heard Aunt Deen’s step at the head of the stairs; it was growing heavy. She called _Valentine_! in a subdued voice and we all hastened to the staircase. “Oh, he is doing well,” she explained, “but he is awake, and he always asks for you if you are not there.” “You may go with me,” mother said to Louise, then turning to me she added that she would call me next; it wasn’t well for too many to enter the room at once, lest our presence should agitate the sufferer. As soon as we were alone Aunt Deen, who must greatly have held herself in during her hours of watching, exploded: “Ah, my boy, if you knew! ‘They’ have killed him--killed him without mercy! The whole town was infected and had no hope except in him. I have seen it, I tell you, those people with their dirty pustules all over their bodies. They would be crying like lost souls, and when your father entered the hospital they would be silent because he had ordered it, but they would hold out their arms to him. How many he has cured! It’s he who saved them all, he and no one else. And the fountains closed, and the water analysed, and the clothing of the dead burned, and the lazaretto set up, all sorts of hygienic measures. Indeed, the very best there are. You should have seen how he commanded everything! Monsieur Mayor, it’s impossible! ‘It must be done by to-morrow.’ But for him there wouldn’t be a person in the streets to-day. And now, now, it’s as much as ever if any one comes to ask how he is! The rumour has spread that he has caught the typhus,--the last one. They are afraid and they abandon him--the wretches!” Thus she pictured the general cowardice and ingratitude. My father stood out above this disorderly crowd. But Aunt Deen had begun on another subject.