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.

They had buried Augustus at sea.  A grand and glorious grave, I think.

By the beginning of the new year I found myself a very rich woman.  Augustus had left me his fortune, to be divided with his mother, should she survive him, and if not, to go to me and any possible children we might have.  The will had been made directly we returned to Ledstone after our wedding.

Amelia received only a very small legacy.

Towards the end of January there was a change in the poor invalid up-stairs.  My presence began to awake some memories.  She was unhappy, and pointed at me.  I disturbed and distressed her.  It grieved me.  I would so willingly have stayed and nursed her, but the doctors absolutely forbade my ever going into her room.

We had all the greatest specialists down from London to consult about her case, but they all shook their heads.  It seemed hopeless and most unlikely she would ever recover her reason.