“Is it possible!” commented Mr. Evringham, smoothing his mustache.

“Not only possible but true, and I wished to go to headquarters and find out the exact state of the case.”

Again the broker’s shoulders began to shake.

“Ballard isn’t headquarters,” he replied.

Mrs. Evringham regarded him, startled.  She wondered if affairs were perhaps very serious, and her father-in-law’s nerves overstrained.  She knew that he had dispensed with the afternoon ride which was so important to him.

She grew a shade paler.  “I wish you would tell me, father, just what the doctor said,” she begged.

Mr. Evringham raised a protesting hand.  “I couldn’t think of it,” he laughed.  “It would give me apoplexy.”

His daughter-in-law began to retreat, and the broker passed her and went into his study, still laughing.

Mrs. Evringham stood with lips parted, looking after him.  Her heart beat fast.  The doctor had called twice.  He had come down the stairs in dead silence just now.  She knew it, for she had been listening and waiting to intercept him.  She had meant to say a number of pretty things to him concerning Eloise’s anxiety about her little cousin.  Her own anxiety redoubled, and she hurried to her daughter’s room and narrated her experience.

“I really think we may have to go, Eloise,” she finished nervously.  “Even if it isn’t infectious, it is so dreadfully dispiriting to be in a house where there is a dangerous illness, and possibly worse.  I’ve been thinking perhaps we might go in town and take lodgings for a while.  No one need know it.  We could even stay there through the summer.  None of our friends would be in town; then in autumn we could come back here.”

Eloise’s lip curled.  “I doubt that,” she returned.  “Grandfather will be forearmed.  I prophesy, mother, that you will never get our trunks up here again after you once take them out.”

“Really, Eloise, you do put things most repulsively,” returned Mrs. Evringham with vexation.  “Besides, how do we know what the future is going to bring forth?  Father behaves to me as if he might be on the verge of brain fever himself.”

“Poor little Jewel!” exclaimed the girl.  “I hope she will pull through, but if she is the cause of our leaving here, I shall always love her memory.”

“I don’t know whether father will even come to dinner,” said Mrs. Evringham, pursuing her own thoughts, “but I suppose we shall see Mrs. Forbes.  I do hope she has some sense about using disinfectants.  It’s outrageous for her to come near the dining-room when she is taking care of that child.  Of course they’ll have a nurse at once.  Forbes doesn’t like going out of her beaten track.”

“I can’t forget that poor little voice rambling on so monotonously this afternoon,” said Eloise.  “I strained my ears to listen, but I could make out only that she said something about ‘love’ and then about ‘righteousness.’  What a word for that little mouth.”