"No, no," she answered, half bitterly. "I bear a charmed life. Nothing seems to check the current of my doomed existence. And you forget that Memphis is my native home. I lived there the first sixteen years of my life, and am quite accustomed to the peculiar climate. And what if death should come? It would only be to 'leave all disappointment, care, and sorrow, and be at rest forever,' But no, I shall not die. I have borne illness, suffering, sorrow--everything that breaks the heart, and snaps the frail threads of existence--yet here I am still, quite healthy, passably rosy, and willing to devote my strength to those who need it. I have been 'through the fire,' Captain Clendenon, and really," with a subdued smile, "I think I am _fireproof_." "Some are refined in the furnace of affliction," he repeats, very gently. Soothed by the softly spoken words, she asks, timidly: "Tell me if I may go under your care?" "If you _will_ go, I shall be most happy to take all the annoyances of travel off your hands; but, little friend, think better of it, and give up this mad, quixotic scheme." "Do you think it such a mad scheme?" she asks, mortified and humiliated. "Do you think I could do no good to those poor suffering victims who need gentle womanly tending so badly? Do you think the sacrifice of my ease, and luxury, and comfort, would count as nothing with Christ? If you think this, Captain Clendenon, tell me so frankly, and I will remain in Norfolk--not otherwise." There is nothing for him to urge against this appeal. She touches up the ponies with her slim, little whip, lightly and impatiently. They are off, like the wind, for home again, as he makes the last appeal he can think of to this indomitable young spirit. "News may come of your husband at any time, Mrs. Winans. Were you to go, and he, returning, found you gone, he would be most bitterly displeased. Remember, it was his express desire that you should remain in your home here. I beg your pardon, if I seem persistent, but it is only through friendly interest in you and yours that I take the liberty." "Ah! but," a gleam of triumph lightening under her black lashes, "you forget that I have my husband's consent to visit Memphis? You brought it to me. I'm returning to the home of my childhood. I am not violating any command or desire of his." "Once more," he says, desperately "let me beg you not to think, for the sake of all those who love you, all you love, of going to that plague-stricken city."