voice asked in lamentable accents:

"What do you here, maiden? What has happened to bring any person
into this shut-up house? Child, child, how didst thou obtain
entrance here? The plague is in this house, and we are straitly
shut up!"

Before Dorcas could answer for fright and the confusion of her
faculties, a pale-faced watchman came hurrying up the stairs.

"Where is the maid?" he asked, and then seeing Dorcas he grasped
her by the wrist and cried, "Unless you wish to be shut up for a
month, come away instantly. This is a stricken house. What
possessed you to seek shelter here? Better anything than that.

"As for your son, mistress, he is fled forth into the street; I
could not hinder him. We are undone if the constable comes. But if
we can get him back again ere that, all may be well. I will let you
forth to lead him hither if he will listen to your voice."

From the room whence the sick man had appeared a frightened face
looked forth, and a half-tipsy old crone whimpered out:

"The fault was none of mine. I had but just dropped asleep for a
moment. But when a man has the strength of ten what can one poor
old woman do?"

Without paying any heed to this creature, the watchman and the
mother of the plague-stricken man, together with Dorcas, who
hurriedly told her tale as they moved, ran down the dark staircase