When they had grown a little used to being together again, she told him of the remarkable experience of the inner voice commanding her to come to the glade. He told her of returning by train late that morning and going home from Highboro—no one was at the depot to meet him because he had not said he was coming, so he’d caught a ride home on a wagon from a farm beyond Oaks that had come in for mail and supplies—and of getting home and setting off again almost at once because he had to be with her. He had not waited for his horse to be saddled, but had come on foot the quicker back way, which had brought him to the glade.

Together they declared the wonder of it, deciding that their love had blessed them with a special knowledge of each other’s heart.

Adam walked Rachel home late in the afternoon, leaving her at the door to make his own way back to Oaks without going in to greet her family because he was, he said, beginning to feel the strain of his journey, now that it was over.

He was in a shaking fever by the time he reached Oaks, delirious by midnight, and dead before the next noon.

15

That Rachel was brought down with the yellow fever too was not an unmixed misfortune; for it put off for a time her learning of Adam’s death. His funeral was a hurried affair, sparsely attended, fearful superstition as well as medical opinion urging quick burial of victims of the fever. Leon was there; Sarah was not. Sarah stayed at Rachel’s bedside day and night until Dr. Platt could assure her that the girl was no longer in mortal danger. When she feared no more, Sarah went to bed herself and slept a whole night through and most of the following morning.

Waking at eleven, she dressed, took coffee with Lovey who had come in to apprise her briefly of the household situation, and then went straight to Rachel’s room to find Juanita brushing out the girl’s hair as well as she could with Rachel’s head still resting on her pillow.

Rachel’s first words to Sarah were: “What has happened, Mama? No one will tell me.”

Sarah took her hand, and Juanita withdrew into a corner. “You have been ill, but now you are better.”

“What of? I know I have not been myself.”

“The fever,” Sarah said.

“Has Adam had the fever too? Tell me!”

“Yes, my dearest; he has.”

That seemed almost to satisfy her. “Then that is why he has not come.”

Sarah nodded and touched her forehead, finding it cool and dry.

“You will tell him I ask for him?”

After brief hesitation Sarah again nodded.

“What a gift he has brought us from Savannah! I shall scold him.”

“You must not tire yourself with so much talking.”