, "I am dying of the
smallpox, and I have sent for you to beg your pardon. I know now that
you were right and I was wrong, although it broke my heart to learn it."

Then by slow degrees and in broken words she told him enough of what she
had learned to enable him to guess the rest, never dreaming, poor child,
of the use to which he would put his knowledge, being too ill indeed to
consider the possibilities of a future in which she could have no part.

The rest of that scene has nothing to do with the world; it has nothing
to do with me; it is a private matter between two people who are dead,
Ernest Merchison and my daughter, Jane Therne. Although my own
beliefs are nebulous, and at times non-existent, this was not so in my
daughter's case. Nor was it so in the case of Ernest Merchison, who
was a Scotchman, with strong religious views which, I understand, under
these dreadful circumstances proved comfortable to both of them. At the
least, they spoke with confidence of a future meeting, which, if their
faith is well founded, was not long delayed indeed; for, strong as
he seemed to be, within the year Merchison followed his lover to the
churchyard, where they lie side by side.

About half-past six Jane became unconscious, and an hour afterwards she
died.

Then in his agony and the bitterness of his just rage a dreadful purpose
arose in the mind of Merchison. He went home, changed his clothes,
disinfected himself, and afterwards came on to the Agricultural Hall,
where I was addressing a mass meeting of the electors. It was a vast and
somewhat stormy meeting, for men's minds were terrified and overshadowed
by the cases of disease which were reported in ever-increasing numbers,
and even the best of my supporters had begun to speculate whether or no
my anti-vaccination views were after all so absolutely irrefutable.

Still, my speech, which by design did not touch on the smallpox scare,
was received with respect, if not with enthusiasm. I ended it, however,
with an eloquent peroration, wherein I begged the people of Dunchester
to stand fast by those great principles of individual freedom, which for
twenty years it had been my pride and privilege to inculcate; and on the
morrow, in spite of all arguments that might be used to dissuade them,
fearlessly to give their suffrages to one who for two decades had proved
himself to be their friend and the protector of their rights.

I sat down, and when the cheers, with which w