The roads were too bad for the automobile, so I drove back to Ledstone in my victoria. It was a brilliant, frosty day, the 11th of December. Something in the air sent my spirits up. I felt if Mr. Budge had only been with me I could have told him I was growing younger. My first interest when I got home should be to alter my boudoir. Augustus had left me fairly provided with money, and I could, at all events, run up what bills I pleased. That thought brought me back to the last bill I had tried to incur. What had been the result of my orders? Would the shop-people have told Lady Grenellen that a strange lady had sent her the tea-gowns? Would she have wondered about them and made inquiries? I had heard nothing further. I dismissed the subject and returned to my boudoir. I was just thinking deeply what change I should make as we drove up the avenue. Should I take away the mustard walls and do the whole thing white, or have it pale green, or what? Then we caught up a telegraph-boy. He handed me the orange envelope. It was from the war office, and ran: "We are deeply grieved to inform you intelligence has been received that your husband, Lieutenant Augustus Gurrage, of the Tilchester Yeomanry, died of measles on board the troop-ship _Aurora_ on the 6th instant." The sky suddenly became dark, I remember nothing more until I found myself in the hall with a crowd of servants round me. For the first time in my life I had fainted. I shall not analyze my feelings at this time. The principal emotions were horror and shock. Oh, poor Augustus! to have died all alone at sea! Oh, I did, indeed, grieve for him! And the measles, which I had almost laughed at! The measles to have killed him! Afterwards, when we heard the details, it appeared his constitution was so weakened with the quantity of alcohol he taken in those last three weeks that he had no strength to stand against the attack. My one thought was for his poor mother. A telegram had gone to her, too, it appeared. I left for Bournemouth by the first train I could catch, but when I arrived I was met by a doctor. Mrs. Gurrage had lost her reason, he told me, upon hearing the news. She had been weak and ailing and in bed ever since her return from London, and this had proved the last straw, and now she lay, a childish imbecile, in her gorgeous bedroom up-stairs. Oh, I can never write the horrors poor Amelia and I went through for the next ten days. The sadness of it all! My poor mother-in-law did not recognize me. She talked incessantly of Augustus. She seemed quite happy. He was a boy again to her--sometimes an infant, and at others almost grown up. Once or twice she asked Amelia if I was not the new tenant at the cottage. "She's a pretty girl," she said, "and Gussie's wonderful took with her." Her poor voice had gone back to the sound and pronunciation of her early youth. Sometimes her accent was so broad and her expression so unusual that I could hardly understand her.