But, even before he had left the house, the problem was solved for them.  The solving of it lay in the note Miss Vanderpoel had written the night before at Stornham.

When it was brought to him Mr. Penzance glanced up from certain calculations he was making upon a sheet of note-paper.  The accumulating difficulties made him look worn and tired.  He opened the note and read it gravely, and then as gravely, though with a change of expression, handed it to Mount Dunstan.

“Yes, she is a creature of action.  She has heard and understood at once, and she has done something.  It is immensely practical—­it is fine—­it—­it is lovable.”

“Do you mind my keeping it?” Mount Dunstan asked, after he had read it.

“Keep it by all means,” the vicar answered.  “It is worth keeping.”

But it was quite brief.  She had heard of the outbreak of fever among the hop pickers, and asked to be allowed to give help to the people who were suffering.  They would need prompt aid.  She chanced to know something of the requirements of such cases, and had written to London for certain supplies which would be sent to them at once.  She had also written for nurses, who would be needed above all else.  Might she ask Mr. Penzance to kindly call upon her for any further assistance required.

“Tell her we are deeply grateful,” said Mount Dunstan, “and that she has given us greater help than she knows.”

“Why not answer her note yourself?” Penzance suggested.

Mount Dunstan shook his head.

“No,” he said shortly.  “No.”

CHAPTER XLII

IN THE BALLROOM

Though Dunstan village was cut off, by its misfortune, from its usual intercourse with its neighbours, in some mystic manner villages even at twenty miles’ distance learned all it did and suffered, feared or hoped.  It did not hope greatly, the rustic habit of mind tending towards a discouraged outlook, and cherishing the drama of impending calamity.  As far as Yangford and Marling inmates of cottages and farmhouses were inclined to think it probable that Dunstan would be “swep away,” and rumours of spreading death and disaster were popular.  Tread, the advanced blacksmith at Stornham, having heard in his by-gone, better days of the Great Plague of London, was greatly in demand as a narrator of illuminating anecdotes at The Clock Inn.

Among the parties gathered at the large houses Mount Dunstan himself was much talked of.  If he had been a popular man, he might have become a sort of hero; as he was not popular, he was merely a subject for discussion.  The fever-stricken patients had been carried in carts to the Mount and given beds in the ballroom, which had been made into a temporary ward.  Nurses and supplies had been sent for from London, and two energetic young doctors had taken the place of old Dr. Fenwick, who had been frightened and overworked into an attack of bronchitis which