How can he bide with me here, mayhap for weeks ?" But Lady Carleon, who could speak no more, only looked at Hugh, who answered: "Fear nothing.

Here we will stay until he recovers--unless," he added, "we ourselves should die." She smiled at him gratefully, then turned her face toward Sir Geoffrey and pressed his hand.

So presently she passed away, the tears running from her faded eyes.
When it was over and the women had covered her, Hugh and Dick left the room, for they could bear no more.
"I have seen sad sights," said Hugh, with something like a sob, "but never before one so sad." "Ay," answered Dick, "that of the wounded dying on Crecy field was a May Day revel compared to this, though it is but one old woman who has gone.
Oh, how heavily they parted who have dwelt together these forty years! And 'twas my careless tongue this morning that foretold it as a jest!" In the hall they met the physician, who rushed wild-eyed through the doorway to ask how his patients fared.
"Ah!" he said to them in French when he knew.

"Well, signors, that noble lady has not gone alone.

I tell you that scores of whom I know are already dead in Venice, swept off by this swift and horrible plague.
Death and all his angels stalk through the city.