Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/378

Rh Rocca instead. Oh, didn't you know it?—he reached Palestrina two days ago very ill with marsh fever. It is fever and cholera and ague and all sorts of dreadful things all together. Isn't it odd?—to have escaped all that danger in Sicily, and, then get this in the swamps coming back? Nobody knew it till late last night, when his steward got frightened, and sent in for the physicians. He is very bad, I believe—not likely to live. You know they go down under that—sometimes in twenty-four hours."

Lady Hilda seemed to reach her at a single step, though the distance of the room was between them.

"Is that true?—or is it some jest?"

Madame Mila, appalled, looked up into her face.

"It is true, quite true. Oh, Hilda, take your hand off; you hurt me. How could I tell you would care about it like that."

"Is it true?" muttered her cousin again.

"Indeed, indeed it is," she whimpered trembling. "Oh let me go, you spoil my lace. If you cared for the man like that, why didn't B B 2