"GEORGETOWN, February --, 1862.
"MRS. WILFORD CAMERON: "Your husband cannot live long. Come immediately.
"M. HAZELTON."
So read the telegram received by Katy one winter morning, when her eyes were swollen with weeping over Morris' letter, which had come the previous night, telling her how circumstances which seemed providential had led him to the hospital where her husband was, and where, too, was Marian Hazelton.
"I did not think it advisable to visit your husband at first," he wrote, "while Miss Hazelton, who had recently been transferred to this hospital, also kept out of the way. Nor was it necessary that either of us should minister to him there, for he was not thought very ill. 'Only a slight touch of rheumatism, and a low, nervous fever,' said the attending physician, of whom I inquired. Latterly, however, the fever has increased to a fearful extent, seating itself upon the brain, so that he knows neither myself nor Miss Hazelton, both of whom are with him. She, because she would be here where she heard of danger, and I because his case was given into my charge. So I am with him now, writing by his side, while he lies sleeping quietly, and Miss Hazelton bends over him, bathing his burning head. He does not know her, but he talks of Katy, who he says is dead and buried across the sea. Will you come to him, Katy? Your presence may save his life. Telegraph when you leave New York, and I will meet you at the depot."
It is not strange that this letter, followed so soon by the telegram from Marian, should crush one as delicate as Katy, or that for a few minutes she should have been stunned with the shock, so as neither to feel nor think. But the reaction came soon enough, bringing with it only the remembrance of Wilford's love. All the wrong, the harshness, was forgotten, and only the desire remained to fly at once to Wilford, talking of her in his delirium. Bravely she kept up until New York was reached, but once where Helen was, the tension of her nerves gave way, and she fainted, so we have seen.
At Father Cameron's that night there were troubled, anxious faces, for they, too, had heard of Wilford's danger. But the mother could not go to him. A lung difficulty, to which she was subject, had confined her to the house for many days, and so it was the father and Bell who made their hasty preparations for the hurried journey to Georgetown. They heard of Katy's arrival and Bell came at once to see her.