Upstairs the fight went on day after day, until at last one morning the doctor told them that it had been won, that the patient, though very much enfeebled, would live and slowly get back his strength.
That was a happy morning. The two caught each, other's hands and whirled joyously round the dining-room when they heard it; and Morton came in with her sleeves rolled up, and her eyes like two blue lakes all blurred with raindrops in the sunlight. Her face seemed like a rainbow.
The next morning the doctor looked the two over before he went upstairs and set a limit to their quarantine. If they kept on doing well they would be reasonably safe from taking the disease. It would be a miracle, almost, if neither of them took it; but it began to look as if they were going to be all right.
Now these two had been so absorbed in one another that they had thought very little about the danger of their taking the disease themselves. If either had been alone in the house with nothing to do but brood it would have probably been the sole topic of thought, but their healthy busy hours had helped the good work on, and so they were coming safely out from under the danger.
It was one bright morning when they were waiting for the doctor to come that Michael was glancing over the morning paper, and Starr trying a new song she had sent for that had just come in the mail the evening before. She wanted to be able to play it for Michael to sing.
Suddenly Michael gave a little exclamation of dismay, and Starr, turning on the piano stool, saw that his face was white and he was staring out of the window with a drawn, sad look about his mouth and eyes.
"What is it?" she asked in quick, eager tones of sympathy, and Michael turning to look at her vivid beauty, his heart thrilling with the sound of her voice, suddenly felt the wide gulf that had always been between them, for what he had read in the paper had shaken him from his happy dream and brought him back to a sudden realization of what he was.
The item in the paper that had brought about this rude awakening was an account of how Buck had broken jail and escaped. Michael's great heart was filled with trouble about Buck; and instantly he remembered that he belonged to the same class with Buck; and not at all in the charmed circle where Starr moved.
He looked at the girl with grave, tender eyes, that yet seemed to be less intimate than they had been all these weeks. Her sensitive nature felt the difference at once.