"For pity's sake, kind doctor--since I doubt not you are my lord's
physician--tell me where are my dearest sister, Lady Fareham, and her
children. Tell me the worst, I entreat you!"
"Sweet lady, there is no ill news to tell. Her ladyship and the little ones
are safe at my lord's house in Oxfordshire, and it is only his lordship
yonder who has fallen a victim to the contagion. Lady Fareham and her girl
and boy have not been in London since the plague began to rage. My lord
had business in the city, and came hither alone. He and the young Lord
Rochester, who is the most audacious infidel this town can show, have been
bidding defiance to the pestilence, deeming their nobility safe from a
sickness which has for the most part chosen its victims among the vulgar."
"His lordship is very ill, I fear, sir?" said Angela interrogatively.
"I left him at eleven o'clock this morning with but scanty hope of
finding him alive after sundown. The woman I left to nurse him was his
house-steward's wife, and far above the common kind of plague-nurse. I did
not think she would turn traitor."
"Her husband has proved a false steward. The house has been robbed of plate
and valuables, as I believe, from signs I saw below stairs; and I suppose
husband and wife went off together.
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