The tidings of her son’s illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at Kerton Manor.  I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she had not been Guy’s nurse for more than thirty-six hours.

The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very differently from any other.  There is a sort of fascination in the roll of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes, that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong man.

There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also, that there are secrets—­secrets shared, too, by many confederates—­to which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew.  The hot blood grew chill for an instant, and the babbling tongue was tied when the dreamer came near the frontier ground, where the oath reared itself distinct and threatening as ever, while all else was fantastic and vague.

There was something of this in Guy’s case.  We could hear distinctly many of his broken sentences, relating sometimes to the hunting-field, sometimes to the orgies of wine or play.  There were names, too, occurring now and then, which to his mother were meaningless, but to me had an evil significance.  Once or twice—­not oftener—­he was talking to Flora Bellasys.  But when the name of Constance Brandon came, the harsh loud voice sank into a whisper so low that if you had laid your ear to his lips you would not have caught one syllable.  Very, very often I had occasion to remark this, and to wonder how the heart could guard its treasure so rigidly when the brain was driving on, aimless as a ship before the hurricane with her rudder gone.

On the fifth day after Guy’s illness began, an angel might have interceded for him in the stead of a pure true-hearted woman, for Constance was dead.

I saw Lady Catharine tremble, and bend her head down low when she heard the news, as if herself crushed by the blow which would fall so heavily on her son.  She had known but very little of Constance; that little had made her love her dearly—­who could help doing that?  Yet it was not Constance she was regretting then.  I could see the same thought was in her mind as in mine—­who will tell Guy this if he recovers?  I did all I could to spare her; but the anxiety she felt when out of the sick-room tried her almost more than the bodily fatigue.  It was best to let her have her way.  I never guessed, till then, the extent of a weak woman’s endurance.