Perhaps in a certain sense it was almost impossible. Fulvia stood alone at the junction of these two paths, unaided, unadvised. She might have had Heavenly counsel, Heavenly strength; but she did not ask for them. What wonder that by herself she was weak—the weaker for having been already overcome? All through the dialogue she had not made up her mind what to do. She had only allowed herself to drift; and nothing is more certain to bring a vessel to disaster than leaving it to drift. When Mr. Carden-Cox put the direct question, "Did you have Nigel's postscript?" a curious hardness came over her, the hardness of desperation. She looked straight at Mr. Carden-Cox, neither blushing nor trembling, and replied— "No." "Not any postscript?" "No." "Quite sure?" "Yes." "It couldn't have remained in the envelope unknown to you." Fulvia was tempted to catch at the suggestion, but Daisy spoke promptly— "Oh no; it wasn't there, I'm sure. I found the envelope on the floor, when Fulvie was in bed; and I looked to see that it was empty." Fulvia kept silence. "Well, it's a very odd state of things, I must say—very odd indeed—very odd. That is all! Most extraordinary," said Mr. Carden-Cox. To Fulvia's intense relief the study door opened. At first she only felt relief, to have the ordeal over. The sense of grief and humiliation at her own fall would come surely, but more slowly. CHAPTER XV FULVIA'S EXPECTATIONS "About my monies."—SHAKESPEARE. "Occasions make not a man frail, but show what he is."—THOMAS À KEMPIS. "I SHOULD have no objection whatever to a second opinion. It would be as well—better, perhaps. But I am afraid there can be no doubt about the matter. It is pronounced heart-complaint," said Dr. Duncan. He had broken his tidings as gently as possible. Mrs. Browning and Fulvia, Mr. Carden-Cox and Nigel, were all present. Dr. Duncan would have preferred to see Nigel alone, but he was allowed no choice. Mrs. Browning insisted on hearing the whole that he had to say; Fulvia remained as a matter of course; and everybody knew better than to speak of banishing Mr. Carden-Cox. Mrs. Browning listened calmly to her cousin's statement; pale, but not overcome. Fanciful worries would bring tears quickly, while in a great trouble she could be brave. Perhaps things proved to be no worse than she had long suspected. Fulvia was the more openly distressed. It came out gradually that Mr. Browning had been very ill after she had left the study. "A sharp attack," Dr. Duncan called it—sharp enough, they found, to mean actual peril to life. He might have passed away there and then, during his wife's absence, with no previous warning. "I can never leave him again," Mrs. Browning said, her dark eyes full of meek resolution.