Two of the gentry were struck down by it—­Alick Corfield and the new occupant of Lionnet, that Mr. Gryce who never went to church, and who was assumed in consequence to have neither a soul to be saved by God nor a heart to be touched by man.  And these were just the two who, according to the theory of the good or evil of a man’s deeds returned to him in kind, had the most reason to expect exemption.  For Alick had spent his strength in visiting the sick as a faithful pastor should, and Mr. Gryce had taken them material help with royal abundance.  Both together they had to pay the price of principle, always an expensive luxury, and never personally so safe a card to play in the game of life as selfishness.  For virtue has not only to be contented with its own reward, as we constantly hear, but has to accept punishment for its good deeds, vice for the most part carrying off the blue ribbons and the gold medals, while poor virtue, shivering in the corner, gets fitted with the fool’s cap or is haled into the marketplace to be pelted in the pillory.  As was seen now in North Aston.

The rector, who never went into an infected cottage nor suffered a parishioner to stand between the wind and his security, kept his portly strength and handsome flesh intact, but Alick nearly lost his life as the practical comment on his faithful ministry; and Mr. Gryce, who, if he did not carry spiritual manna wherewith to feed hungry souls, did take quinine and port wine, money and comforting substances generally, for half-starved aching bodies, was also laid hold of by that inexorable law which knows nothing about providential immunities from established consequences on account of the good motives of the actors.  This would have been called heresy by the North Astonian families, who professed to trust themselves to superior care, but none the less used Condy’s Fluid as a means whereby the work of Providence might be rendered easier to it, nor disdained precipitate flight from the protection in which they all said dolefully they believed.  But there is a wide difference between saying and doing, and men who are shocked by words of frank unbelief find faithless deeds both natural and in reason.

In spite, then, of that expressed trust in Providence which is part of the garniture of English respectability, a great fear fell on the North Aston gentry when these two of their own circle were attacked.  The fever, while it had confined itself to the ill-drained, picturesque little cottages below, was lamentable enough, but not more than lamentable on the broad platform of a common humanity; and those who had lost nothing told those who had lost all that they must bear their cross with patience, seeing that it was the divine will that it should be so.  Now, when the fiery epidemic had come upon the gentry face to face in their homes, it was a monster from which they must flee without delay, for no one knew whose house was safe, nor for how long his own might remain uninfected.