"Is it the heart?" he asked, drawing a deep breath.
"No: but it is a disorder none the less fatal than some of those diseases that attack the heart. It is about two years ago—perhaps not quite so much," she broke off, "since I began to fear I was not well. I let it go on for a little time; Frost, our local doctor, did not seem to make much out of it; and then I came up to Dr. Stair. He is a straightforward man, and he plainly said he did not like my symptoms, but he thought he could subdue them and set me right. I grew better for a time; the malady seemed to have been checked, though it did not entirely leave me. Latterly it has returned with increased force; and—I know my fate."
The disclosure brought to him the keenest pain. "If I could only avert it!" he cried out, in his sorrow; "if I could only ward it off you!"
"No one on earth can do that. For myself, I am quite resigned; resting, and content to rest, in God's good hands."
"And, how long——"
"How long will it be before the end comes, you would ask," she said, for he did not conclude the sentence. "That I do not know. I mean to put the question to Dr. Stair tomorrow, and I am sure he will answer it to the best of his belief. It may be pretty near."
"Do you suffer pain?"
"Always; more or less. That will grow worse, I suppose, before it is over."
"Alas! alas!" he mentally breathed. "Should not your friends be made acquainted with this, Miss Upton?"
"My chief friends are acquainted with it. I have no very close friends. The Rector of Netherleigh is the closest, and he has known of it for some time. That is, he knows I am suffering from a disorder that I shall probably never get the better of. Your mother knows it, for I told her this evening; and now you know it. My faithful maid Annis knows a little—Frost and Dr. Stair most of all. No one else knows of it in the wide world: and I do not wish that any one should know."