“Nobody at all, my lord.  They wouldn’t have got much information out of me, if they had come.”

Lord Hartledon laughed.  “Things are changed now, Hedges, and they may have as much information as they choose.  Bring me coffee here; make haste.”

Coffee was brought, and he went out as soon as he had taken it, following the road to the Rectory.  It was a calm, still night, the moon tolerably bright; not a breath of wind stirred the air, warm and oppressive for October; not by any means the sort of night doctors covet when fever is in the atmosphere.

He turned in at the Rectory-gates, and was crossing to the house, when a rustling of leaves in a shrubbery path caused him to look over the dwarf laurels, and there stood Anne.  He was at her side in an instant.  She had nothing on her head, as though she had just come forth from the rooms for a breath of air.  As indeed was the case.

“My darling!”

“I heard you had come,” she whispered, as he held both her hands in his, and her heart bounded with an exquisite flutter of delight.

“How did you hear that?” he said, placing her hand within his arm, that he might pace the walk with her.

“Papa heard it.  Some one had seen you walking home from the train:  I think it was Mr. Hillary.  But, Percival, ought you to have come here?” she added in alarm.  “This is infected ground, you know.”

“Not for me.  I have no more fear of fever than I have of moonstroke.  Anne, I hope you will not take it,” he gravely added.

“I hope not, either.  Like you, I have no fear of it.  I am so glad Arthur is away.  Was it not wrong of that landlady to let her rooms to us when she had fever in them?”

“Infamously wrong,” said Lord Hartledon warmly.

“She excused herself afterwards by saying, that as the people who had the fever were in quite a different part of the house from ours, she thought there could be no danger.  Papa was so angry.  He told her he was sorry the law did not take cognizance of such an offence.  We had been a week in the house before we knew of it.”

“How did you find it out?”

“The lady who was ill with it died, and Matilda saw the coffin going up the back stairs.  She questioned the servants of the house, and one of them told her all about it then, bit by bit.  Another lady was lying ill, and a third was recovering.  The landlady, by way of excuse, said the greatest wrong had been done to herself, for these ladies had brought the fever into her house, and brought it deliberately.  Fever had broken out in their own home, some long way off, and they ran away from it, and took her apartments, saying nothing; which was true, we found.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” observed Lord Hartledon.  “Their bringing the fever into her house was no justification for receiving you into it when it was there.  It’s the way of the world, Anne:  one wrong leading to others.  Is Matilda getting over it?”