The days and weeks went by like a long nightmare and in due
course the event happened. Bickley was not attending the case; it
was not in his line, he said, and he preferred that where a
friend's wife was concerned, somebody else should be called in.
So it was put in charge of a very good local man with a large
experience in such domestic matters.

How am I to tell of it? Everything went wrong; as for the
details, let them be. Ultimately Bickley did operate, and if
surpassing skill could have saved her, it would have been done.
But the other man had misjudged the conditions; it was too late,
nothing could help either mother or child, a little girl who died
shortly after she was born but not before she had been
christened, also by the name of Natalie.

I was called in to say farewell to my wife and found her
radiant, triumphant even in her weakness.

"I know now," she whispered in a faint voice. "I understood as
the chloroform passed away, but I cannot tell you. Everything is
quite well, my darling. Go where you seem called to go, far away.
Oh! the wonderful place in which you will find me, not knowing
that you have found me. Good-bye for a little while; only for a
little while, my own, my own!"

Then she died. And for a time I too seemed to die, but could
not. I buried her and the child here at Fulcombe; or rather I
buried their ashes since I could not endure that her beloved body
should see corruption.