ed by the
next mail.

While the necessary term of delay was still unexpired, the newspapers
received the intelligence of a volcanic eruption in the northern island
of the New Zealand group. Later particulars, announcing a terrible
destruction of life and property, included the homestead in which Mrs.
Evelin was living. The farm had been overwhelmed, and every member of
the household had perished.

Part IV.

THE NIGHT NURSE.

VII.

_Indorsed as follows:_ "Reply from Sir Richard, addressed to Farleigh &
Halford."

"Your courteous letter has been forwarded to my house in the country.

"I really regret that you should have thought it necessary to apologize
for troubling me. Your past kindness to the unhappy Mrs. Evelin gives
you a friendly claim on me which I gladly recognize--as you shall soon
see.

"'The extraordinary story,' as you very naturally call it, is
nevertheless true. I am the only person now at your disposal who can
speak as an eye-witness of the events.

"In the first place I must tell you that the dreadful intelligence,
received from New Zealand, had an effect on Lord Howel Beaucourt which
shocked his friends and inexpressibly distressed his admirable wife. I
can only describe him, at that time, as a man struck down in mind and
body alike.

"Lady Howel was unremitting in her efforts to console him. He was
thankful and gentle. It was true that no complaint could be made of him.
It was equally true that no change for the better rewarded the devotion
of his wife.

"The state of feeling which this implied imbittered the disappointment
that Lady Howel naturally felt. As some relief to her overburdened mind,
she associated herself with the work of mercy, carried on under the
superintendence of the rector of the parish. I thought he was wrong
in permitting a woman, at her advanced time of life, to run the risk
encountered in visiting the sick and suffering poor at their own
dwelling-places. Circumstances, however, failed to justify my dread
of the perilous influences of infection and foul air. The one untoward
event that happened, seemed to be too trifling to afford any cause for
anxiety. Lady Howel caught cold.

"Unhappily, she treated that apparently trivial accident with
indifference. Her husband tried in vain to persuade her to remain at
home. On one of her charitable visits she was overtaken by a heavy fall
of rain; and a shivering fit seized her on returning to the house. At
her age the resu