Mr.Bloundel did not dare to indulge a hope that Amabel would ever return; but though he suffered much in secret, he never allowed his grief to manifest itself.

The circumstance that he had not received any intelligence of her did not weigh much with him, because the difficulty of communication became greater and greater, as each week the scourge increased in violence, and he was inclined to take no news as good news.

It was not so in the present case, but of this he was happily ignorant.
In this way, a month passed on.

And now every other consideration was merged in the alarm occasioned by the daily increasing fury of the pestilence.

Throughout July the excessive heat of the weather underwent no abatement, but in place of the clear atmosphere that had prevailed during the preceding month, unwholesome blights filled the air, and, confining the pestilential effluvia, spread the contagion far and wide with extraordinary rapidity.