re to laugh, and to give way to a burst of fury himself.

Hamilton had made no attempt to struggle when Knox caught him, but he
now withdrew from the relaxing arms, and the Secretary of War left the
room hastily. Hamilton, to Washington's astonishment, flung himself into
a chair, and dropped his head on his arms. In a moment, he began to sob
convulsively. A malignant fever was breeding in his depressed system;
the blood still surged in his head. He had a despairing sense that his
character was in ruins; he was humiliated to his depths; he despised
himself so bitterly that he forgot the existence of Jefferson.

The humour and anger died out of Washington. He went forward hastily and
locked the door. Then he stooped over Hamilton, and pressed him closely
in his arms.

"My dear boy!" he said huskily. "My dear boy!"

XXXV

That was the last of Hamilton's battles in the Cabinet. Jefferson
resigned; although, in order that the Administration might, until the
crisis was past, preserve an unbroken front to the country, he
reluctantly consented to withhold his resignation until the assembling
of Congress. He retired to Monticello, however; and apologized to the
Secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton, almost immediately, was taken down with yellow fever, which
broke out suddenly and raged with a fearful violence. To the ordinary
odours of carcasses and garbage, were added those of vinegar, tar,
nitre, garlic, and gunpowder. Every disinfectant America had ever heard
of was given a trial, and every man who possessed a shot-gun fired it
all day and all night. The bells tolled incessantly. The din and the
smells were hideous, the death carts rattled from dawn till dawn; many
were left unburied in their houses for a week; hundreds died daily; and
the city confessed itself helpless, although it cleaned the streets.
Hamilton had a very light attack, but Dr. Stevens dropped in frequently
to see him; he privately thought him of more importance than all
Philadelphia.

Lying there and thinking of many things, too grateful for the rest to
chafe at the imprisonment, and striving for peace with himself, Hamilton
one day conceived the idea of immersing yellow-fever patients in
ice-water. Microbes were undiscovered, but Hamilton, perhaps with a
flashing glimpse of the truth, reasoned that if cold weather invariably
routed the disease, a freezing of the infected blood should produce the
same result. He succeeded in convincing Stevens, wit