“Maggie, I call her,” he wrote, “because that name is so much like my first love, Maddy, the little girl who thought I was too old to be her husband, and so made me very wretched for a time, until I met and knew Margaret Atherstone. I have told her of you, Maddy; I would not marry her without, and she seems willing to take me as I am. We shall come home with Guy, who is the mere wreck of what he was when I last saw him. He has told me everything, and though I doubly respect you now, I cannot say that I think you did quite right. Better that one should suffer than two, and Lucy’s is a nature which will forget far sooner than yours or Guy’s. I pity you all.” This almost killed Maddy; she did not love the doctor, but the knowledge that he was to be married added to her misery, while what he said of her decision was the climax of the whole. Had her sacrifice been for nothing? Would it have been better if she had not sent Guy away? It was anguish unspeakable to believe so, and the leafless woods never echoed to so bitter a cry of pain as that with which she laid her head on the ground, and for a brief moment wished that she might die. God pitied his child then, and for the next half hour she hardly knew what she suffered. There was Guy’s letter yet to read, and with a listless indifference she opened it at last and was glad that he made no direct reference to the past except when he spoke of Lucy, telling how happy she was, and how, if anything could reconcile him to his fate, it was the knowing how pure and good and loving was the wife he was getting. Then he wrote of the doctor and Margaret, whom he described as a dashing, brilliant girl, the veriest tease and mad-cap in the world, and the exact opposite of Maddy. “It is strange to me why he chose her after loving you,” he wrote; “but as they seem fond of each other, their chances of happiness are not inconsiderable.” This letter, so calm, so cheerful in its tone, had a quieting effect on Maddy, who read it twice, and then placing it in her bosom, started for the cottage, meeting on the way with Flora, who was seeking for her in great alarm. Uncle Joseph had had a fit, she said, and fallen upon the floor, cutting his forehead badly against the sharp point of the stove. Hurrying on Maddy found that what Flora had said was true, and sent immediately for the physician, who came at once, but shook his head doubtfully as he examined his patient. The wound was very serious, he said, and fever might ensue. Nothing in the form of trouble could particularly affect Maddy now, and perhaps it was wisely ordered that Uncle Joseph’s illness should take her thoughts from herself. From the very first he refused to take his medicines from any one save her or Jessie, who with her mother’s permission staid altogether at the cottage, and who, as Guy’s sister, was a great comfort to Maddy.