That fact they learned only the next day.  For the moment it was enough that the patient was safely within doors again, and that the watchman could make fast the door.  The roisterers had fled at the first sight of the plague-stricken man with their hapless leader in his embrace, and now the darkening street contained only the prostrate figure on the pavement, the two brothers, and the white-faced Dorcas, who felt like to die of fear and horror.

As chance or Providence would have it, up at that very moment came the Master Builder himself, and seeing his son in such a plight, shook his head gravely, thinking him drunk in the gutter.  But Reuben went up and told all the tale, as far as he knew or guessed it, and Dorcas having confirmed the same more by gestures than words, the unhappy father smote his brow, and cried in a voice of lamentation: 

“Alas that I should have such a son!  O unhappy, miserable youth! what will be thy doom now?”

At this cry Frederick moved, and got slowly upon his feet.  He had been stunned by the violence of his fall, and for the first moment believed himself drunk, and caught at his father’s arm for support.

“Have a care, sir,” said Reuben, in a low voice; “he may be infected already by the contact.”

But the Master Builder only uttered a deep sigh like a groan, as he answered, “I fear me he is infected by a distemper worse then the plague.  I thank you, lads, for your kindly thoughts towards him and towards me, but I must e’en take this business into mine own hands.  Get you away, and take your sister with you.  It is not well for maids to be abroad in a city where such things can happen.  Lord, indeed have mercy upon us!”

CHAPTER VI.  NEIGHBOURS IN NEED.

Gertrude Mason sat in the topmost attic of the house, leaning out at the open window, and drinking in, as it were, great draughts of fresh air, as she watched the lights beginning to sparkle from either side of the river, and the darkening volume of water slipping silently beneath.

This attic was Gertrude’s haven of refuge at this dread season, when almost every other window in the house was shuttered and close-curtained; when she was kept like a prisoner within the walls of the house, and half smothered and suffocated by the fumes of the fires which her mother insisted on burning, let the weather be ever so hot, as a preventive against the terrible infection which was spreading with fearful rapidity throughout all London.

But Madam Mason’s feet never climbed these steep ladder-like stairs up to this eyrie, which all her life had been dear to Gertrude.  In her childhood it had been her playroom.  As she grew older, she had gradually gathered about her in this place numbers of childish and girlish treasures.  Her father bestowed gifts upon her at various times.  She had clever fingers of her own, and specimens of her