afraid
because she knew nothing about infection, and had therefore the
boldness of ignorance, and she went daily to ask after Alick because
she somehow slipped into the groove of doing so; and a groove was
a great thing to conservative Leam. Nevertheless, she was really
concerned at the illness of her first North Astonian friend, and
wished that he would soon get well. She never thought that if he died
she would be rid of the only person who knew her deadly secret. Leam
was not one who would care to buy her own safety at the price of
another's destruction; and, more than this, she was not afraid that
Alick would betray her.

This, then, was the condition of things at North Aston at this moment:
the villagers dying of fever in the bottom, the families seeking
safety in flight, Leam going daily to Steel's Corner to ask after
Alick and sit for precisely half an hour with Mrs. Corfield, and Edgar
not so much taken up with bricks and mortar as not to understand times
and habits, and therefore, through that understanding, seeing her for
some part of every day. And the more he saw of her the more he yearned
to see, and the stronger grew her strange fascination over him. To
him, at least, the fever had not been an unmitigated evil; and though
he was sometimes inclined to quarrel with the fact that Leam went
daily to Steel's Corner to inquire after Alick Corfield, yet, as he
got the grain and Alick only the husk, he submitted to the process by
which the best was winnowed to his side. As the gain of that winnowing
process became more evident he grew philosophically convinced that
nothing is so charming in a woman as faithful friendship for a sick
man, and that sitting daily for half an hour, always at exactly the
same time, with an afflicted mother is the most delightful act of
charity to be imagined.

CHAPTER XXVII.

IN THE BALANCE.

Riding was one of the accomplishments brought by Leam from school,
though she had never been able to thoroughly conquer either her
timidity or her reluctance. Her childish days of inaction and
inclusion had left their mark on her for life, and, moreover, she was
not of the race or kind whence, by any process of education possible,
could have been evolved a girl of the florid, fearless, energetic kind
usually held as the type of the English maiden. Hence she was never
quite happy on horseback, and always wondered how it was that people
could be enthusiastic about riding. Nevertheless, s