'But I _am_ alarmed,' cried Maud, by this time in thorough terror; 'don't you see that standing there and giving hints is just the way to frighten one? I know quite well you have brought me some bad news.' 'Yes,' said Boldero, 'I am sorry to say I have. Your husband is ill.' Maud started up and looked him straight in the face, with a serious, eager look, that made Boldero, even at that moment, think how lovely she was. 'Now,' she cried, 'tell me the truth. Have you told me all?' 'No, I have not. I can hardly bear to tell you; but you have sense and courage, and would rather hear the truth. _He is down with cholera._' The words went like a sword through Maud's heart. A blank horror seized her. This, then, had been the meaning of her dream. The blow came crashing down upon her, and body and soul seemed to reel before it. She sank like a crushed, terrified child on the sofa, and, covering her face in her hands, hid herself, speechless, motionless, as from an ill that was too great to bear. 'Let me send for Mrs. Vereker,' said Boldero. 'No!' cried Maud, starting up, 'pray do not. Leave me for a minute or two. I shall be better directly. Will you come back in a quarter of an hour?' 'I will do anything you bid me,' said Boldero frightened at the task he had in hand and its probable results, and thinking that perhaps the best thing he could do was to leave Maud to deal with her sorrow alone. So Boldero went out into the moonlight, and strolled about the pathway, now so silent, where so many joyous footsteps used to press, and Maud was left to herself with her first great trouble. It was significant of the real nature of her relations to Mrs. Vereker that she shrank especially from seeking her now, in her time of sorrow, or following her counsel. Mrs. Vereker was essentially a fine-weather friend. The task which Maud had now in hand was something deeper and graver than anything that the other's feelings reached. What lay before her now to do, or to endure, was something between her husband and herself, and it would be profanity for a stranger to come into that sacred region. Mrs. Vereker's advice would, Maud knew instinctively, be all wrong. She herself felt already what she ought to do. She knelt weeping on the sofa, and the thoughts of sorrow, humiliation, remorse, came pouring thick upon her troubled mind. To what a precipice's edge had not her folly and madness brought her! her fair fame darkened, her husband's name dishonoured, her vows of love and honour how badly kept! Oh, how unutterably weak, faithless, heartless she had been! How ghastly all the afternoon's adventures, the evening's folly, seemed! how wicked, how base, how altogether bad! She had felt the thought stinging all the while, but other, stronger feelings had helped her to ignore it and forget. Now there was no other feeling, and it was overwhelming.