“Oh—” Rachel sat down on a short settee beside the older woman. “I am sorry if I have made a hullabaloo. I quite startled Aunt Pea, I’m sure. This is her letter, you see, from a friend of hers in Savannah, who lives on the very same Broughton Street where Mama lived as a girl. It says that the yellow fever is worse than it has been since the epidemic of 1820! I have heard Mama speak of that, though she was a child at the time, and Aunt Pea took them all into the country to wait until it was over! Oh, you see, do you not? We must not let Adam go. He must be persuaded to cancel or at any rate postpone his going.”

Adam entered, followed by Doreen, who had found him in the office with James, the two of them evaluating and discussing accounts. “Rachel?” he said and went to her and took her hands as she rose from the settee. Rachel could not at first speak. Her mind, having raced ahead to invent calamity, needed a moment to return to the present and accept him as he was, healthy and well.

“She is unhappy,” Edna explained, without letting herself seem to patronize the girl’s apprehensions, “about a letter Miss Penelope has had from a friend in Savannah.”

“Is that all?” Adam laughed relief. “I had thought from the racket and Doreen’s urgent summons to find tragedy waiting on the doorstep.”

Rachel thrust the letter out to him.

“You are asking me to read another’s letter?” he said.

She took it back and unfolded the sheet. “I shall read it to you, and then you will not think me silly.” She smoothed the sheet of paper where she had crumpled it and held it up to catch daylight from the window behind her. “I shall read only the passage about the fever. Aunt Pea was reading it to herself, and when she came to that part, she exclaimed and began to read aloud, knowing your plan.” Rachel’s eyes ran along the lines to find what she wanted. Then she began to read aloud, making a strong effort to hold her voice steady.

“‘The epidemic is a severe one. Folks say there has been no worse since 1820. It is rumored that more than half our population of 15,000 have gone into the country from panic, to escape the noxious humors of the city. Not a single, solitary bell rang for church last Sunday, so preoccupied were those remaining with the sick and the dying and dead—’” Rachel broke off with a sob and held out the letter. “You see, Adam, why you must not go.”