You must
not leave this house again, save for the coach that shall fetch you to
Oxfordshire to join Hyacinth and her children--and that coach shall start
to-morrow. I am a madman to have let you stay so long in this infected
house."
"You forget that I am plague-proof," she answered, throwing off hood and
cloak, and going to his bedside, to the chair in which she had spent many
hours watching by him and praying for him.
No, there was no relapse. He had only been restless and uneasy because of
her absence. The disease was conquered, the pest-spots were healing fairly,
and his nurses had only to contend against the weakness and depression
which seemed but the natural sequence of the malady.
Dr. Hodgkin was satisfied with his patient's progress. He had written to
Lady Fareham, advising her to send some of her servants with horses for his
lordship's coach, and to provide for relays of post-horses between London
and Oxfordshire, a matter of easier accomplishment than it would have been
in the earlier summer, when the quality were flying to the country, and
post-horses were at a premium. Now there were but few people of rank or
standing who had the courage to stay in town, like the Archbishop, who had
not left Lambeth, or the stout old Duke of Albemarle, at the Cockpit, who
feared the pestilence no more than he feared sword or cannon.
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