"You are always kind and thoughtful for me, uncle," she responded gratefully, "but this seems no time to be considering myself. Do you know what the doctor thinks of her?"
"He told me that the attack must have been occasioned by some severe mental shock coming upon an exhausted frame. What she has had to exhaust her I don't know—her duties were light enough, I supposed—but the shock I took to have been the arrest of her brother. It would seem, however, from this, that a far more terrible one was superadded."
"Yes," Mildred said, shuddering. "Oh, my heart bleeds for her. But how strange that she is married? Why should she have kept it so profound a secret? going back to her maiden name?"
"That I cannot tell," Mr. Dinsmore answered; "but probably it was a clandestine and unfortunate affair, and she wished to avoid unpleasant explanations. We will say nothing about it to your aunt, as it would only increase her displeasure against the unhappy woman?"
"Ah, uncle," Mildred said musingly, "how little idea I have had hitherto of the dreadful distress that comes into some lives! I begin to think myself a very fortunate mortal."
"It is well to learn to appreciate our blessings," he returned with a smile that had little of mirth in it; for he was thinking with concern of the condition and prospects of the stranger within his gates.
"I must ask Dr. Barton whether she is likely to be long ill," he said, thinking aloud rather than addressing Mildred, "that we may make arrangements accordingly. And I think we should show him this," indicating the fatal news item.
"It is her secret," Mildred suggested doubtfully.
"True, my dear, but physicians have often to be entrusted with the secrets of their patients and Dr. Barton is a safe depository for such things."
Mrs. Dinsmore was impatient for Dr. Barton's opinion, very impatient over the unfortunate circumstances of the serious seizure of the governess underneath her roof; for she entertained an utter detestation of sickness and death, and was always ready to fly from them at a moment's warning; whatever might be the character of the illness, she insisted there was danger of contagion, and saw it to be clearly her duty to take care of herself by running away.