One morning, however, soon after
Easter, 1850, she awoke feeling seriously unwell. For some little time
there had been a talk of fever in the neighbourhood, but in those days
the precautions that ought to be taken against the spread of infection
were not so well understood as now, and nobody did anything. In a
day or two it became plain that Miss Pontifex had got an attack of
typhoid fever and was dangerously ill. On this she sent off a
messenger to town, and desired him not to return without her lawyer
and myself.
We arrived on the afternoon of the day on which we had been
summoned, and found her still free from delirium: indeed, the cheery
way in which she received us made it difficult to think she could be
in danger. She at once explained her wishes, which had reference, as I
expected, to her nephew, and repeated the substance of what I have
already referred to as her main source of uneasiness concerning him.
Then she begged me by our long and close intimacy, by the suddenness
of the danger that had fallen on her and her powerlessness to avert
it, to undertake what she said she well knew, if she died, would be an
unpleasant and invidious trust.
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