The one haunting anxiety of my life broke out—­ “You haven’t come to say there’s anything amiss with my boy?” I cried out.

“No; oh no!  I think he is safe now; but I wanted to tell you, I think you ought to be warned.”

She was trembling so much that I wanted to bring her in and make her rest; but she would only sit down on the step of the stile, and there she whispered it, in this way.

“You know there’s a dreadful scarlet fever at old Brown’s.”

“The old man that sells curiosities?  No, I did not know it; I’ll keep Trevorsham away,” I said, wondering she had come all this way; and then asking in a fright, “Surely he has not been there?”

“No; I met him on the road with Lady Hester Perrault, and I told them.  I walked back to Spinney Lawn with them.  But,” as I began to thank her, and her voice went lower still, “but—­oh, Ursula, Lady Hester knew it!”

“Knew it!”

“Yes, knew it quite well.”

“She was doing it on purpose!”

“Oh,” Emily hid her face in her hands, “I pray God to forgive me if I am doing a very cruel wicked wrong; but I can’t help thinking it.  I had told her only yesterday how bad the fever was in that street.  She said she had forgotten it, and thanked me; but she had not her own boy, Trevor, with her.

I was too much frozen with the horror of the thing to speak at first, and perhaps Emily thought I did not quite believe her, for she said, under her breath, “And I’ve heard her talk—­talk to mamma—­about her being so certain that Lord Trevorsham could not live, even when he was past seven years old.  They always have said that the first illness would go to his head and carry him off.  And when people do wish things very much—­” And then she grew frightened at herself, and began blaming herself for the horrible fancy, but saying it haunted her every time she saw Lord Trevorsham in Lady Hester’s sight.  That old ballad, “The wee grovelling doo,” would come into her head, and she had felt as if any harm happened to the child it would be her fault for not having spoken a word of warning, and this had determined her.

By this time I had taken it in, and then the first thing I did was to spring up and ask how she could leave the boy still in the woman’s power, to which she answered that she had walked them back to Spinney Lawn—­a whole mile—­and that Lady Hester could not set forth again, now that Alured had heard the conversation.

He had been bent on going to buy a tame sea-gull there, as a birthday present for Trevor; and Emily had lured him off from that, by a promise of getting one from an old fisherman whom she knew.  So there was not much fear of his running back into the danger, though I should not have a happy moment till he was in my sight again.

Then Emily sprang up, saying, she must go.  She had walked four miles, and she must get back as fast as she could.  Most likely mamma would think her at Spinney Lawn.