he illness
was complicated, it was feared, by his having driven in the night to the
small-pox hospital and asked to be taken in there, but there had been a
recrudescence of the plague, and the place was crowded to the doors. Dr.
Molyneux was working there like ten men, and it was his idea to have
Richard Dawson taken to the Cottage, which was much nearer than
Damerstown. We heard that the night journey, which was like to cost him
his life, had been undertaken when he found the illness coming on, to
prevent as much as might be the danger of infection to the large
household at Damerstown. He was very ill indeed, and the doctors hardly
thought he could live.

I was so sorry for him that I felt that if he died even the happiness of
my meeting with my lover would be clouded over. I longed for news of
him, but it was not very easy to obtain it, since the infection kept
every one away.

But one day I was walking when I met Lady Ardaragh driving in her little
phaeton. I had not seen her for some time and I was amazed at the change
in her appearance. She looked terribly ill. All her butterfly
prettiness was gone, and there was something to make the heart ache to
see such evident suffering in one who had had the round softness of a
child.

She pulled up her ponies as soon as she saw me.

"Bawn, Bawn," she said, "there is nothing but trouble in the world--at
least in my world. Stay where you are, child; don't come too near me. Do
you know that he is dying over there?"

She pointed with her whip in the direction of the Cottage.

"I think I am mad to-day, Bawn," she went on: "and if I do not speak to
some one I shall surely go mad. I wish I were a Roman Catholic and could
confess to a priest. How much wiser they are than those who deny the
necessity of confession! I have always been fond of you, Bawn. I believe
you are as true as steel. Let me confess to you and save my reason."

"No, no," I said; "you are not yourself to-day. You will be sorry
afterwards. There is Sir Arthur."

"If you will not listen to me I shall go to him, and there will be an
end to everything. Perhaps I am mad. It's enough to drive any woman mad.
Richard Dawson is dying; and my little Robin is sickening. They will
not let me be with him till they know if it is the small-pox. Isn't it
enough to drive a woman mad?"

"Tell me, you poor soul," I said--"tell me everything. Afterwards it
will be buried at the bottom of the sea."

She turned to me with a