r!

After breakfast I started upon my rounds of canvassing and
speech-making. Oh, what a dreadful day was that, and how I loathed the
work. How I cursed the hour in which I had taken up politics, and sold
my honour to win a seat in Parliament and a little cheap notoriety among
my fellow-men. If Stephen Strong had not tempted me Jane would have been
vaccinated in due course, and therefore, good friend though he had been
to me, and though his wealth was mine to-day, I cursed the memory
of Stephen Strong. Everywhere I went that afternoon I heard ominous
whispers. People did not talk openly; they shrugged their shoulders and
nodded and hinted, and all their hints had to do with the smallpox.

"I say, Therne," said an old friend, the chairman of my committee, with
a sudden outburst of candour, "what a dreadful thing it would be if
after all we A.V.'s were mistaken. You know there are a good many cases
of it about, for it's no use disguising the truth. But I haven't heard
of any yet among the Calf-worshippers" (that was our cant term for those
who believed in vaccination).

"Oh, let be!" I answered angrily, "it is too late to talk of mistakes,
we've got to see this thing through."

"Yes, yes, Therne," he said with a dreary laugh, "unless it should
happen to see us through."

I left him, and went home just in time to dress. There were some people
to dinner, at which Jane appeared. Her lassitude had vanished, and, as
was her manner when in good spirits, she was very humorous and amusing.
Also I had never seen her look so beautiful, for her colour was high
and her dark eyes shone like the diamond stars in her hair. But again I
observed that she ate nothing, although she, who for the most part drank
little but water, took several glasses of champagne and two tumblers of
soda. Before I could get rid of my guests she had gone to bed. At length
they went, and going to my study I began to smoke and think.

I was now sure that the bright flush upon her cheeks was due to what we
doctors call _pyrexia_, the initial fever of smallpox, and that the
pest which I had dreaded and fled from all my life was established in my
home. The night was hot and I had drunk my fill of wine, but I sat and
shook in the ague of my fear. Jane had the disease, but she was young
and strong and might survive it. I should take it from her, and in that
event assuredly must die, for the mind is master of the body and the
thing we dread is the thing that kil