Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/329

 and more anxious as the weeks went by, each one taking with it a little and a little more of his strength. At last she spoke to him, and begged him to begone while there was yet time.

They were watching beside Madame Anna, who had at last been overtaken by the fever, and whose vigorous physique was struggling with the destroyer, when Therese suddenly laid her hand on Philip's arm and entreated him to leave Thebes.

"And leave you, Therese? No, my child, we are now seeing the beginning of the end; for the last three days the new cases have been diminishing, and the character of the disease has become less malignant. More recover than die now."

"Yes, and for that reason you must go. You have done your work; the worst is past. I will stay with Madame Anna till she is well, or till all is over. There is no danger for me; it rarely attacks my people."

Since she had learned that her blood was tainted by that inferior strain, which until it is removed to the thirty-second degree, according to the old code noir, outbalances the purer blood and makes the individual a person of color, Therese had always spoken of herself as belonging to the African race. And yet Therese