Since her homecoming, Hester had not yet been to see Miss Dasomma because of the smallpox danger. But now she thought she might visit her friend. After telling her of herself and lord Gartley, Hester told her teacher that her brother Cornelius had been behaving very badly, and had married a young woman without letting them know. Her father and mother were yet unaware of the fact and she dreaded having to tell them of it. He had been very ill with smallpox and she was now planning to take them home. But she did not know what to do with his wife until after she had broken the matter to them since she knew her father would be very angry.

“Could I see the young lady?” asked Miss Dasomma thoughtfully.

“Surely, any time,” replied Hester, “now that Corney is so much better.”

Miss Dasomma called, and was so charmed with Amy that she proposed to Hester that Amy should stay with her.

Now came the painful necessity of breaking to the young wife that her husband had deceived her, and that, as a result, she must be parted from him for a while.

Had Cornelius not been ill and helpless, he would probably have refused to go home. But he did not venture a word of opposition to Hester’s determination. Notwithstanding his idiotic pretence of superiority, he had a kind of thorough confidence in Hester. In his sickness something of the old childish feeling about her as a refuge from evil had returned to him, and he was now nearly ready to do whatever she pleased, trusting her to get him out of the scrape he was in.

“But now tell me, on your word of honour,” she said to him that same night when she was alone with him, “are you really and truly married to Amy?”

She was delighted to see him blaze up in anger.

“Hester, you insult us both!” he said

“No, Cornelius,” returned Hester, “I have a right to distrust you because of all that has happened. But I do not distrust Amy in any way.”

At this Cornelius swore a solemn oath that Amy was as much his lawful wife as he knew how to make her.

“Then what is to be done with her when you go home? You cannot expect that she will be welcomed. I have not dared tell them of your marriage—only of your illness.”

“I don’t know. How should I know!” answered Cornelius with a return of his old manner. “I thought you would manage it for me! This cursed illness—”

“Cornelius!” said Hester, “this illness is the greatest kindness God could have shown you.”

“Well, we won’t argue about that!—Sis, you must get me out of this scrape!”

Hester’s heart swelled at the sound of the old loving nursery word. She turned to him and kissed him.

“I will do what I honestly can, Cornelius,” she said.

“All right!” replied Corney. “What do you mean to do?”