At that time Jane said nothing of her adventure to me, though afterwards I learned every detail of it from her and Mrs. Smith.  She did not even tell me that she had visited the Smiths’ cottage until one morning, about eight days afterwards, when some blundering servant informed us at breakfast that the baby Smith was dead of the smallpox in the hospital, and that the other child was dangerously ill.  I was shocked beyond measure, for this brought the thing home, the people lived almost at my gates.  Now I remembered that I had seen the red-headed tramp catch the child Tottie in his arms.  Doubtless she introduced the infection, though, strangely enough, her little sister developed the disease before her.

“Jane,” I said when the servant had left, “did you hear about the Smith baby?”

“Yes, father,” she answered languidly, “I knew that it had smallpox a week ago.”

“Then why did you not tell me, and how did you know?”

“I didn’t tell you, dear, because the mere mention of smallpox always upsets you so much, especially just now with all this election worry going on; and I knew it because I was at the Smiths’ cottage and nursing the baby when the doctor came in and said it was smallpox.”

“You were nursing the baby!” I almost screamed as I sprang from my seat.  “Great heavens, girl; why, you will infect the whole place.”

“That was what Ernest—­Dr. Merchison—­seemed to think.  He wanted to vaccinate me.”

“Oh, and did you let him?”

“How can you ask me such a question, father, remembering what you have always taught me?  I said——­” and with omissions she told me the gist of what had passed between them.

“I didn’t mean that,” I answered when she had done.  “I thought that perhaps under the influence of shock——­Well, as usual, you showed your wisdom, for how can one poison kill another poison?” and, unable to bear it any longer, making some excuse, I rose and left the room.

Her wisdom!  Great heavens, her wisdom!  Why did not that fool, Merchison, insist?  He should have authority over her if any man had.  And now it was too late—­now no vaccination on earth could save her, unless by chance she had escaped infection, which was scarcely to be hoped.  Indeed, such a thing was hardly known as that an unvaccinated person coming into immediate contact with a smallpox patient after the eruption had appeared, should escape infection.

What did this mean?  It meant that within a few days Jane, my only and darling child, the very hope and centre of my life, would be in the fangs of one of the most dreadful and dangerous diseases known to humanity.  More, having never been vaccinated, that disease was sure to strike her with its full force, and the type of it which had appeared in the city was such that certainly not more than one-half of the unprotected persons attacked came alive out of the struggle.