Was May to believe in so radical a reformation thus easily worked? The experience of her past life convinced her to the contrary; and yet the attempt must be made. She would shut out all those recollections of insult suffered and misery undergone, which came thronging upon her at the mere idea of renewing her life with her husband; she would forget the more recent horror with which the revelations in his ravings had inspired her; it was her duty to accept his proposition, and she would do it. Lord Forestfield was exhausted by the fatigue which he had undergone in speaking to her at such length, and May, telling him that she had been warned against allowing him to excite himself, promised to talk to him on the subject to-morrow. The next morning at an early hour, while Dr. Whitaker was sleeping the sleep of the just, his bell was rung furiously by a messenger from Seamore-place, who brought a request from the nurse that the doctor would come there at once, as Lady Forestfield was very ill. Dr. Whitaker shook his head when he received this message, and told his wife he had been all along afraid that her ladyship might contract typhus from her husband, and that, as in nursing and attendance she had exhausted the stock of health which she had brought with her from the country, it was not improbable that it might go hard with her. After Dr. Whitaker had visited May he shook his head more dolefully still; and the nurse, who had been relieved of her attendance on Lord Forestfield owing to his convalescence, and had transferred her care to the new patient, was observed, after a hurried and whispered talk with the physician, to have tears in her eyes. That night it became known throughout the household that her ladyship was in a very bad way. The attack was a desperate and a malignant one, and, as Dr. Whitaker had said, such health and strength as she had acquired during her sojourn at Woodburn were already exhausted by her close confinement to the sick-room, and she could not make headway against it.