It was on the fourth or fifth day that highly dangerous symptoms supervened, and then her mother wrote to Charles the letter which had not reached him; there was this much of negative consolation to be derived from the non-receipt, that had it been delivered to him on the instant of its arrival he could not have been in time to see her. “You ought to have written to me as soon as she was taken sick,” he said to Mrs. Brewster. “I would have done it had I apprehended danger,” she repentantly answered, “but I never did, and the doctor never did. I thought how pleasant it would be to get her safely through the danger and sickness before you knew of it.” “Did she not wish me written to?” The question was asked firmly, abruptly, after the manner of one who will not be cheated out of his answer. Her mother could not evade it; how could she, with her child lying dead over her head? “It is true she did wish it, it was on the first day of her illness that she spoke, ‘Write and tell Charles Taylor,’ she never said it but once.” “And you did not,” he uttered, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Do not reproach me! Do not reproach me!” cried Mrs. Brewster, clasping her hands in supplication, and the tears falling in showers from her eyes, “I did all for the best, I never supposed there was danger. I thought what a pity it would be to bring you back such a long journey, putting you to so much unnecessary trouble and expense.” Trouble and expense--in a case like that she could speak of expense to Charles--but he thought how she had to battle with both trouble and expense her whole life long, and that for her they must wear a formidable aspect, he remained silent. “I wish now I had written,” she resumed in the midst of her choking sobs, “as soon as the doctors said there was danger, I wished it, but,” as if she would seek to excuse herself, “what with the two upon my hands, she upstairs, Mary down here, I had not a moment for proper reflection.” “Did you tell her you had not written?” he asked, “or did you let her lie day after day, hour after hour, waiting and blaming me for my careless neglect?” “She never blamed any one, you know she did not,” wailed Mrs. Brewster, “and I think she was too sick to think even of you, she was only sensible at times. Oh, I say, do not reproach me, Mr. Taylor, I would give my own life to bring her back. I never knew her worth until she was gone, I never loved her as I love her now.” There could be no doubt that Mrs. Brewster was reproaching herself far more bitterly than any reproach could tell upon her from Charles Taylor, an accusing conscience is the worst of all evils. She sat there, her head bent, swaying herself backwards and forwards on her chair, moaning and crying. It was not a time Charles felt to say a word of her past heartless conduct in forcing Janey to breathe the infection of her sister’s sick room, and all that he could say, all the reproaches, all the remorse and repentance would not bring her back to life.