"What is it?" I asked.

"What is it? Why, what I called after you yesterday, only you wouldn't
stop to listen, and I haven't known where to find you since. It's
puerperal fever, and Heaven knows what gave it to her, for I don't. I
thought so yesterday, and this morning I am sure of it."

"Puerperal fever," I muttered, "then I am ruined, whatever happens to
Emma."

"Don't talk like that, man," answered Sir John, "she has a capital
constitution, and, I daresay, we shall pull her through."

"You don't understand. I have been attending Lady Colford, going
straight from Emma's room to her."

Sir John whistled. "Oh, indeed. Certainly, that's awkward. Well, we must
hope for the best, and, look you here, when a fellow calls out to you
another time just you stop to listen."

To dwell on all that followed would serve no good purpose, and indeed
what is the use of setting down the details of so much forgotten misery?
In a week my beloved wife was dead, and in ten days Lady Colford had
followed her into the darkness. Then it was, that to complete my own
destruction, I committed an act of folly, for, meeting Sir John Bell, in
my mad grief I was fool enough to tell him I knew that my wife's death,
and indirectly that of Lady Colford, were due to his improper treatment
and neglect of precautions.