"The woman nodded.
"'She knows the postman's step, sir, even when he is a long way off. She singles it out from all other sounds. If he stops at the door, I must run down upon the instant. But whether he stops or not, it is always the same thing--there is no letter for her.'
"I went upstairs again and into her room. The girl was lying upon her side, with her faced pressed into the pillow, and crying. I patted her shoulder.
"'Come, Mrs. Braxfield, you must tell me what the trouble is, and we will put our heads together and discover a remedy.'
"But she drew away from me. 'There is nothing,' she repeated. 'I am weak--that is all.'
"I could get no more from her, and the next day I besought her to tell me where I might find her husband. But upon that point, too, she was silent. Then came a night, about a week later, when she fell into a delirium, and I sat by her side and wrestled with death for her. I fought hard with what resources I had, for there was no reason why she should die but the extreme weakness into which she had fallen.
"I sat by the bed, thinking that now at last I should learn the secret which ravaged her. But there was no coherency in what she said. She talked chiefly, I remember, of a work-table and of something hidden there which she must destroy. She was continually, in her delirium, searching its drawers, opening the lid and diving amongst her embroidery and beads, as though she could not die and let the thing be found.
"So till the grey of the morning, when she came out of her delirium, turned very wistfully to me with a feeble motion of her hands, and said:
"'You have been very good to me, doctor.'
"She lay thus for a few moments, and then she cried in a low sad voice: 'Oh, Arthur, Arthur!' And with that name upon her lips she died.