The chamber they entered was very still.

As he approached the bed, he saw that Mary and Kate were lying there, and that Harry was in the crib beside them.

Their faces were red, and when he placed his hands upon their foreheads, he found them hot with fever.
Hopelessly and silently the unhappy man turned from the bed, and seated himself in a distant corner of the room.

The death-mark was upon his children--did he not recognize the fatal sign?
He had remained thus for only a minute or two, it seemed, when he felt a hand upon his arm.

He looked up; his wife stood beside him, and her eyes rested steadily in his own.