She rose as she spoke, and began to undress. His eyes fell upon the tumbler. Taking it up he held it to the light. "I do believe this is your whey! It is quite cold. To drink it like this would do you no good." "Oh, what does it signify?" she answered; as if that and all things else were utterly indifferent to her. Mr. Lake quitted the room without speaking. By and by he came back with another glassful, quite hot. "Now, Clara, drink this." She refused at first; it would do her no good, she said; but Mr. Lake insisted upon it. He was her husband still, and could exact obedience. But the morrow brought no journey for Mrs. Lake. It brought illness instead. With early morning Mr. Lake got up and aroused the house, saying that his wife was ill. She had awoke so exceedingly suffering--her breath impeded, her face and eyes hot and wild--as to alarm him. Mrs. Chester hastened to her bedside, and the nearest doctor was summoned in haste and brought to the house. He pronounced the malady to be inflammation of the chest and lungs, and forbade her to attempt to leave her bed. He inquired of Mrs. Lake if she knew how she had taken it, and she told him, after a pause of hesitation, that she had gone out of doors from a warm room the previous evening without putting anything on, and the damp cold must have struck to her. Yes; it was so. As the sight she had gone out to witness struck a chill to her heart, so did the cold and damp strike a chill to her frame. Once before, five or six years ago, she had caught a similar chill, and inflammation had come on in the same rapid manner. The doctor observed that she must be especially predisposed to it, and privately inquired of Mrs. Chester whether any of her relatives had died of consumption. "Yes," was the answer, "her mother and her brother." Mr. Lake went to Katterley and brought back the gentleman who had attended her from infancy, Dr. Marlow, an old man now. He was a personal friend of theirs as well as medical attendant. He saw no cause for anxiety, he said to Mr. Lake; that she was very ill there was no doubt, but not, he thought, ill unto danger. "She has a good constitution, she has a good constitution," urged Mr. Lake, his tone of anxiety proving that he wished to be reassured upon the point. "For all I have ever seen to the contrary," replied Dr. Marlow. "She must be more prudent for the future, and not subject herself to sudden changes of temperature." "She found the drawing-room very hot, and went from it into the cold night-air. It opens with glass doors. And if you remember, doctor, last night was raw and foggy. At least, it was so here; I don't know what it may have been at Katterley." So spoke Mr. Lake. But it never entered into his carelessly-constituted mind to wonder _why_ his wife had gone out; or whether, having gone out, she might by some curious chance have come unsuspected across the path of himself and another.