Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/808

768 that they should not be published. But with a disregard alike for the wishes of the dead and the feelings of the living, the person rushed some of these absurd "communications' into print within a few weeks of Lady Burton's death, and despite all remonstrance was later proceeding to publish others, when stopped by a threat of legal proceedings from the executors.

Early in 1895 Lady Burton was struck down with the prevailing epidemic of influenza; and though she rallied a little after a month or two, she never recovered. She was no longer able to walk up and down stairs without assistance, or even across the room. Her decline set in rapidly after this illness; for the influenza gave a fresh impetus to her internal malady, which she knew must be fatal to her sooner or later. She remained in Baker Street a sad invalid the first six months of the year, and then she recovered sufficiently to be removed to Eastbourne for a change. It was in July that I saw her last, just before she left for Eastbourne. She asked me to come and see her. I went one Sunday afternoon, and I was grieved to see the change which a few months had worked in her. She was lying on a couch in an upper room. Her face was of waxen whiteness, and her voice weak, but the brave, indomitable spirit shone from her eyes still, and she talked cheerfully for a long time about her literary labours and her plans and arrangements for some time ahead.

At Eastbourne she took a cottage, and remained there from September, 1895, to March 21, 1896. It was