Possibly the ink had run short, and was diluted.

Old Maisie strove to read the writing, gasping with an eagerness her
daughter found it hard to understand; but failed to decipher anything
beyond, "My dear Sister-in-law." She dropped the letter, saying
feebly:--"Read--you read!"

Then Ruth read:--

"'I take up my pen to write you fuller particulars of the great
calamity that has befallen me. For I am, as my previous letter will
have told you, if it has reached you ere this, a widower. I am
endeavouring to bear with resignation the lot it has pleased God to
visit upon me, but in the first agonies of my grief at the loss of
my beloved helpmeet I was so overwhelmed as to be scarce able to
put pen to paper. I am now more calm and resigned to His will, and
will endeavour to supply the omission.

"'My dear Maisie was in perfect health and spirits when she went to
visit a friend, Mary Ann Stennis, the wife of a sheep-farmer, less
than thirty miles from where I now write, on the Upper Derwent, one
of the few women in this wild country that was a fit associate for
her. She was to have started home in a few days' time, but the
horse that should have carried her, the only one she could ride,
being a timid horsewoman, went lame and made a delay, but for which
delay it may be God would have spared her to me. But His will be
done! It seems she was playing with the baby of a native black,
there being a camp or tribe of them near at hand, she being greatly
diverted with the little monster, when its sister, but little older
than itself, found a scorpion beneath a stone, and set it to bite
its little brother. Thereupon Maisie, always courageous and
kindhearted, must needs snatch at this most dangerous vermin, to
throw it at a distance from the children....'"

Old Maisie interrupted the reader. Her face was intent, and her eyes
gleamed with an unhealthy, feverish light. "Stop, my dear," said she.
"This is all true."

"All true!" Surely her mind was giving way. So thought Ruth, and
shuddered at the gruesome thought. "Mother--mother--how _can_ it be
true?"

"All quite true, my dear, but for one thing! All true but for who it
was! It was not I--it was Mary Ann was at play with little Saku. And the
scorpion bit _her_ hand, and she died of the bite.... Yes--go on! Read
it all!" For Ruth had begun:--"Shall I--_must I_?" a