her. He, too, felt it, for
it is the form which peril takes rather than equality of risk which
makes disease appal many a man for whom war has the charm which awakens
the lust of contest, and not such alarm as the presence of the unseen
foe which gives no quarter. He dismissed his fears with a silent appeal
for strength and support.

He thought then of his enemy. Where was he? This pestilence, the
inexplicable act of an all-powerful God, had for a time been set as a
barrier between him and his foe. If either he or Carteaux died of it,
there was an end of all the indecisions that affection had put in his
way. He had a moral shock at the idea that he was unwilling to believe
it well that the will of God should lose him the fierce joy of a
personal vengeance. How remote seemed such a feeling from the religious
calm of the Quaker home! And then a rosy face, a slight, gray-clad
figure, came before him with the clearness of visual perception which
was one of his mental peculiarities. The sense of difference of rank
which his mother had never lost, and would never lose, he had long since
put aside. Margaret's refinement, her young beauty, her gay sweetness,
her variety of charm, he recalled as he lay; nor against these was there
for him any available guard of common sense, that foe of imprudent love,
to sum up the other side with the arithmetic of worldly wisdom. He rose,
disturbed a little at the consciousness of a power beginning to get
beyond his control, and went on his way down the long, dusty road,
refreshed by the fair angel company of Love and Longing.

Very soon he was recalled from his dreams. As he came within a mile of
the city, he saw tents as for an army, camp-fires, people cooking, men,
women, and children lying about by the roadside and in the orchards or
the woods. Two hungry-looking mechanics begged help of him. He gave them
each a shilling and went on. The nearer shore of the quiet Schuylkill
was lined with tents. Over the middle-ferry floating bridge came
endlessly all manner of vehicles packed with scared people, the
continuous drift from town of all who could afford to fly, a pitiful
sight in the closing day. Beyond the river were more tents and
half-starved families.

At dusk, as he went eastward on Market Street, there were fewer people,
and beyond Sixth Street almost none. The taverns were closed. Commerce
was at an end. Turning south, he crossed the bridge over Dock Creek at
Second Street and was