No news had come except that seven American papers had been forwarded to Barbara, giving brief accounts of the pestilence in the southern cities.  The numbers of deaths in Abville were sensibly decreased, one of these papers said.  The arrival of an English physician, Dr. Lucas Brownlow, and his sister had been noticed, and also that the sister had succumbed to the disease, but that he was recovering.  These were all, however, only up to the date of the telegram, and the sole shadow of encouragement was in the assurances that any really fatal news would have been telegraphed.  Mrs. Evelyn and Barbara were very loving companions during this time.  Together they looked over those personal properties of Duke’s which rather belonged to his mother than his heir.  Mrs. Evelyn gave Barbara several which had special associations for her, and together they read over his papers and letters, laughing tenderly over those that awoke droll remembrances, and perfectly entering into one another’s sympathies.

“Yet, my dear,” said Mrs. Evelyn, “I do not know whether I ought to let you dwell on this:  you are too young to be looking back on a grave when all life is before you.”

“Nay,” said Babie, “it was he that showed me how to look right on through life!  You cannot tell how delightful it is to me to be brought near to him again, now I can understand him so much better than ever I did when he was here.”

“Yet it was always his fear that he might sadden your life.”

“Sadden? oh no!  It was he who put life into my hands, as something worth using,” said Babie.  “Don’t you know it is the great glory and quiet secret treasure of my heart, that, as Jock said that first night, I have that love not for time but eternity.”

And their thoughts could not but go back to the travellers in America, and all the possibilities, for were not whole families swept off by the disease, without power of communication?

However, at last, four days after the wedding, Barbara received a letter.

“Ashton Vineyard, Virginia. 
September 30th.

“MY DEAREST BABIE,-—I have left you too long without tidings, but I have had little time, and no heart to write, and I could not bear to send such news without details.  Of the ten terrible days at Abville I may, if I can, tell you when we meet.  I was in a sort of country house a little above the valley of the shadow of death, preparing supplies, and keeping beds ready for any of the exhausted workers who could snatch a rest in the air of the hill.  I scarcely saw my poor Janet.  She had made out that her husband had been one of the first victims, before she even guessed at his being there.  She only came once to tell me this, and they would not even allow me to come down to the Church, where all the clergy, doctors and sisters who could, used to meet, every morning and evening.