She had called me in to help in her terror at the last symptoms of approaching death, and I heard him mutter to her:  ’Thou hast come to be a tolerable housewife.  I have taken care thou dost not lavish all on beggarly stranger.’

At least so the words came back on me afterwards; but we were absorbed in our attendance on him in his extremity, and when death had come at last I had to lead her away drooping and utterly spent.  Alas! it was not exhaustion alone, she had imbibed the dreadful disease, and for another three weeks she hung between life and death.  Her stepdaughter left her bed, and was sent away to the country-house to recover, under the care of the steward’s wife, before Millicent could open her eyes or lift her head from her pillow; but she did at last begin to revive, and it was in those days of slow convalescence that she and I became very dear to one another.

We could talk together of home, as she loved to call England, and of her little daughter, of whom Annora sent me daily reports, which drew out the mother’s smiles.  She could not be broken-hearted for Mynheer van Hunker, nor did she profess so to be, but she said he had been kind to her—­much kinder since she had really tried to please him; and that, she said—­and then broke off—­was after he—­your brother—­ my lord—–­ And she went no further, but I knew well afterwards what that chance meeting had done for her—­that meeting which, with such men as I had too often seen at Paris, might have been fatal for ever to her peace of mind and purity of conscience by renewing vain regrets, not to be indulged without a stain.  Nay, it had instead given her a new impulse, set her in the way of peace, and helped her to turn with new effort to the path of duty that was left to her.  And she had grown far happier therein.  Her husband had been kinder to her after she ceased to vex him by a piteous submission and demonstrative resignation; his child had been given to brighten her with hope; and that she had gained his daughter’s affection I had found by Veronica’s conversation about her, and her tears when permitted to see her—­or rather to enter her dark chamber for a few moments before going to Hunkerslust, the name of the country-house near Delf.  Those days of darkness, when the fever had spent itself, and the strength was slowly returning, were indeed a time when hearts could flow into one another; and certainly I had never found any friend who so perfectly and entirely suited me as that sweet Millicent.  There was perhaps a lack of strength of resolute will; she had not the robust temper of my high-spirited Annora, but, on the other hand, she was not a mere blindly patient Grisel, like my poor sister-in-law, Cecily d’Aubepine, but could think and resolve for herself, and hold staunchly to her duty when she saw it, whatever it might cost her; nor did terror make her hide anything, and thus she had won old Hunker’s trust, and he had even permitted her to attend the service of exiled English ministers at the Hague.