"
"Certainly," answered Mr. Warden, with painful abruptness.
"Sacred as a confession!" repeated Mrs. Bolton. "I must tell you, then,
that I am in the greatest trouble about my nephew's wife. You know how
ill she was last winter, after he went away. A low, nervous fever, which
hung over her for months. She would not listen to my telling David about
it, and, indeed, I was reluctant to distress and disturb him about a
matter that he could not help. But she is very strange now; very strange
and flighty. Possibly you may have observed some change in her?"
"Yes," he replied, still looking down on the floor, but seeing a vision
of Sophy pacing the beaten track to the little grave under the vestry
window.
"When she was at the worst," pursued Mrs. Bolton, "and I had the best
advice in London for her, she was ordered to take the best wine we could
get. I told Brown to bring out for her use some very choice port,
purchased by the archdeacon years ago. She must have perished without
it; but unfortunately--I speak to you as her pastor, in confidence--she
has grown fond of it.
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