and scenting danger, so that every day for a fortnight Bertha
met her cousin with a disappointed 'No Rattler!'

CHAPTER XXX
SCARLET FEVER

There was a meeting of one of the many charitable societies to which
Bertha had made Lord Northmoor give his name, and she persuaded him to
stay on another day for it, though he came down in the morning with a
sore throat and heavy eyes, and, contrary to his usual habits, lay about
in an easy-chair, and dozed over the newspaper all the morning.

When he found himself unable to eat at luncheon, she allowed that he was
not fit for the meeting, but demurred when he declared that he should go
home at once that afternoon to let Mary nurse his cold. The instinct of
getting back to wife and home were too strong for Bertha to contend with,
and he started, telegraphing to Northmoor to be met at the station.

Perhaps there were delays, as in his oppressed and dazed state he had
mistaken the trains, for he did not arrive at home till nine o'clock
instead of seven, and then he looked so ill as he stumbled into the hall,
dazzled by the lights, that Mary looked at him in much alarm.

'Yes,' he said hoarsely, 'I have a bad cold and sore throat, and I
thought I had better come home at once.'

'Indeed you had! If only you have not made it worse by the journey!'

Which apparently he had done, for he could scarcely swallow the warm
drinks brought to him, and had such a night, that when steps were heard
in the house, he said--

'Mary, dear, don't let Mite come in. I am afraid it is too late to keep
you away, but if I had felt like this yesterday, I would have gone
straight to the fever hospital.'

'Oh no, no, what should you do but come home to me? Was it that horrible
place at Rotherhithe?'

'Perhaps. It is just a fortnight since, and I felt a strange shudder and
chill as I was talking. But it may be nothing; only keep Mite away till
I have seen Trotman. My Mary, don't look like that! It may be nothing,
and we have been very happy--thank God.'

Poor Mary, in a choking state, hurried away to send for the doctor, and
to despatch orders to Nurse Eden to confine Master Michael to the nursery
and garden for the present, her sinking and foreboding heart forbidding
her to approach the child herself.

The verdict of the doctor confirmed these alarms, for all the symptoms of
scarlet fever had by that time manifested themselves. Mary had gone
through the disease long before, and h