Amid the anxiety caused by this announcement every one wondered where the disease had been contracted, and ere long it was known that all the guests of Lord Londesborough at the time of the Royal visit had become more or less indisposed; that the hostess herself was seriously ill; that the Earl of Chesterfield, one of the recent guests, was down with typhoid and, finally that Blegg, the Prince's groom, had caught the same disease. Ultimately both peer and peasant died, and the seriousness of their illness as it developed in the public eye added to the gradually growing excitement over the condition of the Heir-Apparent. The growth of popular feeling in the matter was evidently deep and serious. Bulletins stating that the symptoms of the fever were severe but regular continued for a time amid ever-increasing manifestations of interest and, as the weeks passed slowly by and the Queen had gone to the bedside of her son and something of the devotion of his wife to the sick Prince became known, this feeling grew in volume. Meanwhile the Princess Alice had also come to lend her brother the sympathetic touch and knowledge of nursing for which she was so well known. For a brief moment on December 1st, the patient roused from his delirium sufficiently to remark that it was the birthday of the Princess, and for a week thereafter the news of improvement in his condition was good. Then came a crisis when the fever had spent itself while the patient had also become worn out. It was impossible to say whether he could live another day. The Royal family were summoned to Sandringham on December 9th, and on the following day (Sunday) prayers were offered up in all the churches of the land and in many other countries, by request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the morning, the Vicar at Sandringham Church received a note from the Princess of Wales: "My husband being, thank God, somewhat better, I am coming to church, I must leave, I fear, before the service is concluded that I may watch by his bedside. Can you say a few words in prayer in the early part of the service, that I may join with you in prayer for my husband before I return to him?" THE CRISIS AND THE RECOVERY