"It may be for some weeks, he cannot tell certainly."
"Moved? What occasion for that? The room she occupies now is comfortable; is it not?"
"Dear me, Mr. Dinsmore, you can be very stupid! I want to know if she can't be sent to the village to a hotel or boarding house. It isn't at all pleasant to think of her dying here. I don't want any haunted rooms in my house."
He paused in his walk, and stood looking at her in amazement, that presently gave place to an expression of extreme chagrin and disgust.
"Isabella!" he exclaimed, "are you utterly heartless? utterly destitute of womanly compassion for the helpless and suffering?"
"Of course I'm not," she said, resorting to tears, as was her wont when at a loss for better weapons of defence. "I'm sure she could be made very comfortable there, and I spared the necessity of being turned out of my own home in the depth of winter. But you can think of everybody's comfort and happiness except your wife's; _it_ isn't of the least consequence, and never will be."
"Really," he said, "I do not know what you are talking about. I certainly have not proposed your leaving home, and cannot see the slightest necessity for your doing so."
"No, you would be quite as well pleased to have me stay here and get sick and die, and give you a chance to find a younger and prettier wife."
He disdained a reply to that, and presently she went on:
"I shall take the children, and go to Kentucky to visit my sister. It's fortunate that Mr. Marsden comes to-morrow, and is going to return immediately. I could not have a better escort."
"As you please; I have become somewhat used to being left out of my wife's plans," he said coldly, turning on his heel to leave the room. "Go if you like," he added, turning toward her again, "but don't talk of necessity; for there is not the remotest danger of Miss Worth's sickness proving contagious. She is dying of a broken heart."
"Ridiculous!" she muttered as he went out and shut the door, "the idea of a governess coming to such a romantic end. It's far more likely to turn out scarlet fever or small-pox."
By morning she had worked herself up to the belief that such was really the case.
The next step was to bring her nieces to a like conviction; in which she succeeded so well that they were greatly alarmed, Juliet nearly forgetting the disappointment and disgrace of her late attempt at elopement, in the fear that small-pox might rob her of her beauty.