hoped more from a dry hard winter than
from any exertion either of his or theirs.

But, alas! with the end of November a season of furious rain set in.

Then Robert began to watch Mile End with anxiety, for so far every
outbreak of illness there had followed upon unusual damp. But the rains
passed, leaving behind them no worse results than the usual winter crop
of lung ailments and rheumatism, and he breathed again.

Christmas came and went, and with the end of December the wet weather
returned. Day after day rolling masses of south-west cloud came up from
the Atlantic and wrapped the whole country in rain, which reminded
Catherine of her Westmoreland rain more than any she had yet seen in the
South. Robert accused her of liking it for that reason, but she shook
her head with a sigh, declaring that it was 'nothing without the becks.'

One afternoon she was shutting the door of the school behind her, and
stepping out on the road skirting the green--the bedabbled wintry
green--when she saw Robert emerging from the Mile End lane. She crossed
over to him, wondering as she neared him that he seemed to take no
notice of her. He was striding along, his wideawake over his eyes, and
so absorbed that she had almost touched him before he saw her.

'Darling, is that you? Don't stop me, I am going to take the
pony-carriage in for Meyrick. I have just come back from that accursed
place; three cases of diphtheria in one house, Sharland's wife--and two
others down with fever.'

She made a horrified exclamation.

'It will spread,' he said gloomily, 'I know it will. I never saw the
children look such a ghastly crew before. Well, I must go for Meyrick
and a nurse, and we must isolate and make a fight for it.'

In a few days the diphtheria epidemic in the hamlet had reached terrible
proportions. There had been one death, others were expected, and soon
Robert in his brief hours at home could find no relief in anything, so
heavy was the oppression of the day's memories. At first Catherine for
the child's sake kept away; but the little Mary was weaned, had a good
Scotch nurse, was in every way thriving, and after a day or two
Catherine's craving to help, to be with Robert in his trouble, was too
strong to be withstood. But she dared not go backwards and forwards
between her baby and the diphtheritic children. So she bethought herself
of Mrs. Elsmere's servant, old Martha, who was still inhabiting Mrs.
Elsmere's cottage till a tenant