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“You must go to the hospital,” he said huskily, “both of you. I will come quickly and do what I can. I will arrange with the nurse to look after your mother, Phyllis. I was mad just now, and you must forget. I don’t think it’s much use, the treatment that they recommend, but I’ll try it. I’d save you for one another if I could. Anyhow, you are together. You are lucky.”

We went together to the hospital. It was in the high school and the houses adjoining it. A number of fellow-sufferers were there, and others were thronging in. Those who came singly were excited and restless, and some of them called wildly for their stars — meaning, doubtless, the “mates” of the lights that had seized upon them. Those who were in pairs mostly behaved like lovers, as some of them had previously been, we knew. Some, however, were evidently strangers, or unfriendly. These were sullen, or reviled one another.

We found a quiet corner in a garden, and sat there for a time holding hands. We did not feel any pain or illness, only very weak; and I think, perhaps, this was the effect of excitement rather than the stars. At length it occurred to me that we could help those who were more afflicted than we. So we went in again. We found Hallam and Doris Fane sitting together in the hall, looking at one another with set faces — hers flushed and angry, his pale and grave. The twin lights had bound her and him!

We went a little nearer to speak to them, and I felt the lights leap on my breast. At the same moment Phyllis started and seized my hand, and he and Doris suddenly rose.

“Frank!” Phyllis cried. “His stars are calling mine. Don’t let them take me from you.”

“They shall not take you,” I said; and I seemed to hear the lights that held me hiss. Then we walked up to them and shook hands. And a struggle took place that I cannot describe or wholly understand, but I know.

I cannot give any reason for the thing that saved us, but I know. So does Phyllis. So do Hallam and Doris. The twin lights that held us four had been wrongly mated. Mine wanted those of Doris, and hers wanted mine. Hallam’s wanted those of Phyllis, and hers wanted his. But they were bound otherwise, and having seized upon us they could not leave us, and struggling to leave us they did not take any great hold upon us or do us any great harm. That is how I have escaped to write these things.

We did not lose our faculties, or talk gibberish like the other sufferers, and we did not fail utterly in body as they did, and die; and for two days and nights we toiled almost without cessation to minister to them; toiled till we were giddy and almost dropped. At first we had the help of a few elder children who had not gone to the homes established for them. The lights did not attack the children, as I have said before.

Few people came into the hospital after the first day, as most of those who were not attacked at the beginning had fled into the country, where I fear those who were attacked perished more miserably, no homes having been established for them. Two or three, however, came in singly, drawn by the triple light to its mate on someone with us. Two of our patients also left, beating their breasts, and saying that they must seek their stars — the “love-lights” some of the poor, demented sufferers called them.

Those who remained with us — some sixty originally — were helplessly inert for long periods. At other times they gesticulated wildly and talked in the unknown tongue. La-Lu-Le, they kept crying, with the accent first on one syllable and then on the other, and in times varying from love to despair. La-Lu-Le!

They had intervals of reason, but those grew fewer and shorter. After the first day they made no attempt to take food or drink, even in their rational moments, and they lost the power of their limbs and lay in long rows on the beds and couches. We worked unceasingly to minister to them. The supply of food grew short, and Phyllis and I went out and raided some of the shops that had been hurriedly left with