sly related, and conducted to the house in Nicholas-lane. It
will not be necessary to recapitulate what subsequently occurred. We
shall, therefore, proceed to the point of time when he quitted his new
patient, and entered the room where Thirlby and Leonard were waiting for
him. Both, as has been stated, rushed towards him, and the former
eagerly asked his opinion respecting his daughter.

"My opinion is positive," replied Hodges. "With care, she will
undoubtedly recover."

"Heaven be thanked!" cried Thirlby, dropping on his knees.

"And now, one word to me, sir," cried Leonard. "What of Amabel?"

"Alas!" exclaimed the doctor, "her troubles are ended."

"Dead!" shrieked Leonard.

"Ay, dead!" repeated the doctor. "She died of the plague to-night."

He then proceeded to detail briefly all that had occurred. Leonard
listened like one stupefied, till he brought his recital to a close, and
then asking where the house in which she had died was situated, rushed
out of the room, and made his way, he knew not how, into the street. His
brain seemed on fire, and he ran so quickly that his feet appeared
scarcely to touch the ground. A few seconds brought him to London
Bridge. He crossed it, and turning down the street on the left, had
nearly reached the house to which he had been directed, when his career
was suddenly checked. The gate of the court-yard was opened, and two
men, evidently, from their apparel, buriers of the dead, issued from it.
They carried a long narrow board between them, with a body wrapped in a
white sheet placed upon it. A freezing horror rooted Leonard to the spot
where he stood. He could neither move nor utter a cry.

The men proceeded with their burden towards the adjoining habitation,
which was marked with a fatal red cross and inscription. Before it stood
the dead-cart, partly filled with corpses. The foremost burier carried a
lantern, but he held it so low that its light did not fall upon his
burden. Leonard, however, did not require to see the body to know whose
it was. The moon was at its full, and shed a ghastly light over the
group, and a large bat wheeled in narrow circles round the dead-cart.

On reaching the door of the house, the burier set down the lantern near
the body of a young man which had just been thrust forth. At the same
moment, Chowles, with a lantern in his hand, stepped out upon the
threshold. "Who have you got, Jonas?" he asked.

"I know not," replied the hindmost burier. "