But there came a day when Jason staggered into the little house wearing a ghastly face. He paid no attention to the food Jemima set out for him. He made his way to Mahala’s room, and clinging to the foot of the bed, he stood staring down at her, an agony of doubt, of fear, written over his face and figure. Finally, Jemima could endure it no longer. She put her arm around him and helped him from the room. He went out and sat down on the back steps, where Jemima followed him. “Don’t feel so badly, Jason,” she said. “You’re working so hard that your nerve is givin’ way. All of us feel that Mahala is holdin’ her own. She’s goin’ to come out of this. You needn’t be so afraid. We won’t let her die.” The face that Jason lifted to hers was so ghastly that Jemima never forgot it. “You haven’t stopped to consider,” he said, “that death might be the best thing that could happen to her.” “No, I haven’t,” said Jemima stoutly, “because I don’t think it. She’s young, and she’s strong, and she’s innocent.” Jason sat so still that it occurred to Jemima that he had stopped breathing; and then he said quietly: “One man said she was innocent. Eleven say that she is guilty. That is a stain that is going to mark her the remainder of her life. I’m not sure that life is the best thing for her.” “The only thing of which I’m sure,” said Jemima heartily, “is that you’ve worked to the breaking point, or you may have picked up this fever yourself. Doctor Grayson says people do get it from one another. Now you come and get some food, and go to bed and have a good sleep, and to-morrow you work just half as hard as you have to-day.” There were three anxious days at the time the fever ran its course, but Doctor Grayson was a skilled and a conscientious physician and he was dealing with a condition that he had handled many times in his life when he did not have the vitality of youth to aid him. The thing that he would have to combat in Mahala’s case would be her lethargy, the indifference that he felt sure she would feel, when consciousness returned, as to whether she lived or died, and this proved to be the hardest battle that he had to fight. But she was young; she was physically strong. Jemima, the nurse, and Doctor Grayson never faltered in their unwavering work and faith. The result was, that a week after the crisis, they were beginning to whisper of mysterious things to Mahala. There was a journey that she was to make; there was a wonderful surprise in store for her; something delightful was going to happen. Because she was very weak, because she was desperately tired, because her heart had been as nearly broken as human hearts ever come to that condition without ultimate completion, Mahala found the easiest way was to listen, to accept what was being said. Several times she had sat in her chair by the window for an hour; her feet had touched the floor; she had stood upon them and performed a few wavering journeys around the room.