"I am lost, I am changed, I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
Look in my face and see."

Yet although Death's voice calling us from afar may seem all sweetness,
his voice coming nearer has a note of dread in it that appals the most
death-desirous heart. And in that silence those poor lovers both heard
him singing, it seemed not many streets away.

"I must be very ill, dear," said Jenny. "O my love, O my love...!"

Theophil strove with himself to say words with a real ring of the future
in them, when this cloud should have passed away; and for his sake Jenny
pretended to believe them. Yes, this very week he would take her away to
bright skies and healing air,--though Jenny felt a little tired at the
thought of rising any more from the bed to which she was growing
curiously accustomed.

Then there came a new doctor to see Jenny. He was a very clever
specialist from a distant town; but for him the business of death had
not yet obscured its tragedy,--though words like "tragedy" were not
often on his tongue. Consumption was a strong enough word for him.

His heart went out to that little household; and when he saw Jenny, it
ached for that young man downstairs. It was more than a professional
contempt for the "general practitioner" that made him silently curse
what he called the "death-doctor," as he looked at Jenny, "Jack of all
diseases, and master of none."