ice that your ignorance and obstinacy have been the
cause of her death."

Before Mr. Dawson could answer, before the Count could leave us, the
door was opened from the sitting-room, and we saw Lady Glyde on the
threshold.

"I MUST and WILL come in," she said, with extraordinary firmness.

Instead of stopping her, the Count moved into the sitting-room, and
made way for her to go in. On all other occasions he was the last man
in the world to forget anything, but in the surprise of the moment he
apparently forgot the danger of infection from typhus, and the urgent
necessity of forcing Lady Glyde to take proper care of herself.

To my astonishment Mr. Dawson showed more presence of mind. He stopped
her ladyship at the first step she took towards the bedside. "I am
sincerely sorry, I am sincerely grieved," he said. "The fever may, I
fear, be infectious. Until I am certain that it is not, I entreat you
to keep out of the room."

She struggled for a moment, then suddenly dropped her arms and sank
forward. She had fainted. The Countess and I took her from the doctor
and carried her into her own room. The Count preceded us, and waited
in the passage till I came out and told him that we had recovered her
from the swoon.

I went back to the doctor to tell him, by Lady Glyde's desire, that she
insisted on speaking to him immediately. He withdrew at once to quiet
her ladyship's agitation, and to assure her of the physician's arrival
in the course of a few hours. Those hours passed very slowly. Sir
Percival and the Count were together downstairs, and sent up from time
to time to make their inquiries. At last, between five and six o'clock,
to our great relief, the physician came.

He was a younger man than Mr. Dawson, very serious and very decided.
What he thought of the previous treatment I cannot say, but it struck
me as curious that he put many more questions to myself and to Mrs.
Rubelle than he put to the doctor, and that he did not appear to listen
with much interest to what Mr. Dawson said, while he was examining Mr.
Dawson's patient. I began to suspect, from what I observed in this
way, that the Count had been right about the illness all the way
through, and I was naturally confirmed in that idea when Mr. Dawson,
after some little delay, asked the one important question which the
London doctor had been sent for to set at rest.

"What is your opinion of the fever?" he inquired.

"Typhus," replied the physi