She had gone on waiting day after day for an answer to her letter, but no answer came.

No answer came, but in lieu thereof she heard that Harry was laid up at Normansgrove.
She heard it, and Gertrude heard it, and in spite of the coming wedding there was very little joy at Surbiton Cottage.
And then Mrs.Woodward wrote again; and a man must have had a heart of stone not to be moved by such a letter.

She had 'heard,' she said, 'that he was ill, and the tidings had made her wretched--the more so inasmuch as he had sent no answer to her last letter.

Was he very ill?
was he dangerously ill?
She hoped, she would fain hope, that his illness had not arisen from any mental grief.

If he did not reply to this, or get some of his family to do so, there would be nothing for her but to go, herself, to Normansgrove.