And so she left him, and as she returned to Orchard Street in the brougham, she applied to him every term of reproach she could bring to mind.  He was selfish, and a coward, and utterly devoid of all feeling of family honour.  He was a prig, and unmanly, and false.  A real cousin would have burst out into a passion and have declared himself ready to seize Lord Rufford by the throat and shake him into instant matrimony.  But this man, through whose veins water was running instead of blood, had no feeling, no heart, no capability for anger!  Oh, what a vile world it was!  A little help,—­so very little,—­would have made everything straight for her!  If her aunt had only behaved at Mistletoe as aunts should behave, there would have been no difficulty.  In her misery she thought that the world was more cruel to her than to any other person in it.

On her arrival at home she was astounded by a letter that she found there,—­a letter of such a nature that it altogether drove out of her head the purpose which she had of writing to the Duke on that evening.  The letter was from John Morton and now reached her through the lawyer to whom it had been sent by private hand for immediate delivery.  It ran as follows: 

Dearest Arabella,

I am very ill,—­so ill that Dr. Fanning who has come down from London, has, I think, but a poor opinion of my case.  He does not say that it is hopeless,—­and that is all.  I think it right to tell you this, as my affection for you is what it always has been.  If you wish to see me, you and your mother had better come to Bragton at once.  You can telegraph.  I am too weak to write more.

Yours most affectionately,
John Morton.

P.S.  There is nothing infectious.

“John Morton is dying,” she almost screamed out to her mother.

“Dying!”

“So he says.  Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am!  Everything that touches me comes to grief.  Then she burst out into a flood of true unfeigned tears.

“It won’t matter so much,” said Lady Augustus, “if you mean to write to the Duke and go on with this other—­affair.”

“Oh, mamma, how can you talk in that way?”

“Well; my dear; you know—­”

“I am heartless.  I know that.  But you are ten times worse.  Think how I have treated him!”

“I don’t want him to die, my dear; but what can I say?  I can’t do him any good.  It is all in God’s hands, and if he must die—­why, it won’t make so much difference to you.  I have looked upon all that as over for a long time.”

“It is not over.  After all he has liked me better than any of them.  He wants me to go to Bragton.”

“That of course is out of the question.”

“It is not out of the question at all.  I shall go.”

“Arabella!”

“And you must go with me, mamma.”

“I will do no such thing,” said Lady Augustus, to whom the idea of Bragton was terrible.