He holds his breath, and crouches still closer into the dark corner;
and Anne, thinking she must have been mistaken in the dim light,
passes him and goes upstairs.

Then he creeps stealthily to the door, lets himself out and closes it
softly behind him.

After the lapse of a few minutes the old housekeeper plods upstairs
and delivers John's message. Anne, finding it altogether
incomprehensible, subjects the poor dame to severe examination, but
fails to elicit anything further. What is the meaning of it? What
"business" can have compelled John, who for ten weeks has never let
the word escape his lips, to leave her like this--without a word!
without a kiss! Then suddenly she remembers the incident of a few
moments ago, when she had called to him, thinking she saw him, and he
did not answer; and the whole truth strikes her full in the heart.

She refastens the bonnet-strings she has been slowly untying, and
goes down and out into the wet street.

She makes her way rapidly to the house of the only doctor resident in
the neighbourhood--a big, brusque-mannered man, who throughout these
terrible two months has been their chief stay and help. He meets her
on her entrance with an embarrassed air that tells its own tale, and
at once renders futile his clumsy attempts at acting

How should he know where John is? Who told her John had the fever--a
great, strong, hulking fellow like that? She has been working too
hard, and has got fever on the brain. She must go straight back
home, or she will be having it herself. She is more likely to take