Eoger telegraphed his father to meet him at the boat with the village hearse.  The news spread fast, and the little community was soon deeply stirred with sympathetic interest.  Mrs. Jocelyn was too weak to endure the journey, and Mildred would not leave her.  Therefore Mr. Wentworth held a simple, heartfelt service over the one they all so loved, and Roger departed on his sad errand.  He was eager to get away, and, if the thought of Belle had not been uppermost in all minds, it would have been seen that he was far from well in spite of his almost desperate efforts to hide his illness.  His father found him on the boat delirious with fever.  The old man’s face was haggard and drawn as he returned to Forestville with his two helpless burdens, grieving far more for the one that was ill than for the one that was dead.  “It’s turning out just as brother Ezra said,” he growled.  “A man’s a fool to mix himself up with other people’s troubles.”  The interest in the village deepened into strong excitement when it became known that Roger was ill with the fever that had caused Belle’s death, some timid ones fearing that a pestilence would soon be raging in their midst.  But the great majority yielded to their good impulses, and Mrs. Atwood was overwhelmed with offers of assistance.  Several young farmers to whom Belle had given a heartache a few weeks before volunteered to watch beside her until the funeral, and there was a deeper ache in their hearts as they sat reverently around the fair young sleeper.  The funeral was a memorable one in Forestville, for the most callous heart was touched by the pathos of the untimely death.

Meanwhile poor Roger was tossing in fever and muttering constantly of his past life.  The name, however, oftenest on his lips was that of Millie Jocelyn.

Never before in all the troubled past did the poor girl so need his sustaining love as on the night he left her.  Mr, Wentworth spent an hour with the sad mother and daughter after the others had gone, and then sorrowfully departed, saying that he had an engagement out of town, and that he would come again immediately on his return.  Mrs. Wheaton had gone home, promising that she would come back in the evening and spend the night with them, for she had a neighbor who would take care of the children, and so at last the two stricken women were left alone.

Mildred was bathing her mother’s head and trying to comfort her when the door opened, and a haggard, unkempt man stood before them.  For a second they looked at him in vague terror, for he stood in a deep shadow, and then Mrs. Jocelyn cried, “Martin!  Martin!” and tears came to her relief at last.

He approached slowly and tremblingly.  Mildred was about to throw herself into his arms, but he pushed her away.  His manner began to fill them with a vague, horrible dread, for he acted like a spectre of a man.

“Where are the children?” he asked hoarsely.

“We have sent them to the country.  Oh, papa, do be kind and natural—­you will kill mamma.”