“You’re mistaken about what’s the matter with her, doctor.  She’s got the chicken-pox.  You just look at her again as you go out, and you’ll see that I am right.  But it’s just as well to be careful.  You might mail a note for me when you go out, and my wash-woman will buy things for me, and bring them up here to the door.  I’ll swear I won’t go out till you say I may, or till you take me to the hospital.  And then, as you go along, you can step into the front flat left, and tell her uncle she’s took bad with chicken-pox.  He’s got a lot of young ones, and he’ll be glad enough to let me do it, see?  And of course, chicken-pox is quite serious sometimes.  I should expect to pay a doctor pretty well to bring a patient out of it,” she added, with a placid smile.

The doctor had turned, and was looking with deep interest at a chromo on the wall.

“I’ll take another look at her.  I may have been mistaken, doctors sometimes are—­symptoms alike—­and—­m—­m—­you can get that letter ready for me to mail.”

Strange days and nights ensued.  Druse had a dim knowledge of knocks at the door at night, of curses and oaths muttered in the hall, of Miss De Courcy’s pleading whispers, of a final torrent of imprecations, and then of a comparative lull; of days and nights so much alike in their fevered dull monotony that one could not guess where one ended and another began; of an occasional glimpse that melted into the general delirium, of Miss De Courcy’s face, white, with heavy, dark-ringed eyes, bending over her, and of Miss De Courcy’s voice, softened and changed, with never a harsh note; of her hand always ready with cooling drink for the blackened, dreadful mouth.  Yes, in the first few days Druse was conscious of this much, and of a vague knowledge that the rocking ship on which she was sailing in scorching heat, that burnt the flesh from the body, was Miss De Courcy’s bed; and then complete darkness closed in upon the dizzy little traveller, sailing on and on in the black, burning night, further and further away from the world and from life.

How could she guess how many days and nights she sailed thus?  The ship stopped, that was all she knew; but still it was dark, so dark; and then she was in a strange land where the air was fire, and everything one touched was raging with heat, and her hands, why had they bandaged her hands, so that she could not move them?

“I can’t see,” said Druse, in a faint, puzzled whisper.  “Is it night?”

And Miss De Courcy, bending over the bed, haggard and wan, and years older in the ghostly gray dawn, said soothingly: 

“Yes, Druse, it’s night,” for she knew Druse would never see the light again.

“Miss De Courcy!”

“Yes, Druse.”

“I expect I’ve kept your brother out all this time.  I hope he won’t be mad.”

“No, no, Druse; be quiet and sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.  I wish it would be morning.  I want to see you, Miss De Courcy.  Well, never mind.  Somehow, I guess I ain’t goin’ to get better.  If what I’ve had—­ain’t catchin’—­I suppose you wouldn’t want to—­to kiss me, would you?”