real question is, What is it
your duty to do?"

"Oh yes," she cried passionately; "my duty! Duty's a very fine thing.
It's always `duty, duty.' But there are two parties to duty: has _he_
done his duty? He has beaten me, starved me, cursed me--is that doing
his duty? And now I am to go and nurse him in a vile fever-smitten
hole, and lose my life, and so deprive my children of a mother, because
it's my duty. I don't see it at all."

Both her hearers looked deeply distressed. Then Amos said, "Still he is
your husband, and dying."

"Dying!" she exclaimed sneeringly; "not he--it's all pretence. If
anything common could have killed him, such as kills other people, he
would have been dead ages ago. But he isn't like other men; he has got
a charmed life. He'll be all right again after a while."

"And you will not go to him?" asked Amos, calmly and sadly.

"No, certainly not," she cried indignantly. "I've suffered more than
enough already for him and from him. Besides, if you talk of duty, it
is surely my duty to think of the dear children, and not run the risk of
bringing back the fever to them, supposing I should not be killed by it
myself."

"Then," said her brother deliberately, "_I_ shall go."

"You, Amos!" exclaimed both his aunt and sister.

"Yes," he said; "my own duty is now plain to me. The poor man has let
me know his case; he is my sister's husband, however unworthy a husband;
he is dying, and may be eternally lost body and soul, and by going I may
be made the means of helping on the good Scripture reader's work. The
poor dying man's heart is softened just now, and it may be that when he
hears the words of God's truth, and experiences kindness from one who
has been treated by him as I have been, he may be led to seek and find
pardon before he is taken away."

"But," said his aunt anxiously, "you will be running a great risk of
catching the fever, and may lose your own health, and even your life."

"I know it," he said; "I have counted the cost; and should I be taken
away, I shall merely have done my duty, and"--his voice trembled as he
proceeded--"I shall be the one best spared and least missed in the
household." As he uttered these last words, his sister, who had been
gradually crouching down shiveringly on to the floor, clasped her hands
over her face and wept bitterly, but she uttered no word. Then Amos
turned to his aunt and said, "Will you, dear aunt, kindly explain to my
father how