She was not alarmingly ill, nor was the fever supposed to be contagious, except under certain conditions.  Mr. Hale, the Thornleigh doctor, made very light of the business, and assured us that his patient would be as well as ever in a week’s time.  But in the mean while my dear girl kept her room, and I nursed her, with the assistance of her devoted little maid.

Mr. Egerton came every day, generally twice a day, to inquire about the invalid’s progress, and would stay for half an hour, or longer, talking to Mrs. Darrell or to me.  He was very much depressed by this illness, and impatient for his betrothed’s recovery.  He had been strictly forbidden to see her, as perfect repose was an essential condition to her well-being.

The week was nearly over, and Milly had improved considerably.  She was now able to sit up for an hour or two every day, and the doctor promised Mr. Egerton that she should be in the drawing-room early in the following week.  The weather had been incessantly wet during this time—­dull, hopeless, perpetual rain day after day, without a break in the leaden sky.  But at last there came a fine evening, and I went down to the terrace to take a solitary walk after my long imprisonment.  It was between six and seven o’clock; Milly was asleep, and there was no probability of my being wanted in the sick-room for half an hour or so.  I left ample instructions with my handy little assistant, and went down for my constitutional, muffled in a warm shawl.

It was dusk when I went out, and everything was unusually quiet, not a leaf was stirring in the stagnant atmosphere.  Late as it was, the evening was almost oppressively warm, and I was glad to throw off my shawl.  I walked up and down the terrace in front of the Hall for about ten minutes, and then went round towards the drawing-room windows.  Before I had quite reached the first of these, I was arrested by a sound so strange that I stopped involuntarily to listen.  Throughout all that followed, I had no time to consider whether I was doing right or wrong in hearing what I did hear; but I believe if I had had ample leisure for deliberation, it would have come to the same thing—­I should have listened.  What I heard was of such vital consequence to the girl I loved, that I think loyalty to her outweighed any treachery against the speaker.

The strange sound that brought me to a standstill close to the wide-open window was the sound of a woman’s passionate sobbing—­such a storm of weeping as one does not hear many times in a life.  I have never heard anything like it until that night.

Angus Egerton’s sonorous voice broke in upon those tempestuous sobs almost angrily: 

‘Augusta, this is supreme folly.’

The sobs went on for some minutes longer unchecked.  I heard his step sounding heavily as he walked up and down the room.

‘I am waiting to hear the meaning of all this,’ he said by and by.  ‘I suppose there is some meaning.’