I fell ill with anxiety.

I never knew what to say or think.
I did what many others in dire perplexity do, I went to one older, wiser and better than myself, a white-haired old minister, whom I had known for many years, and in whom I had implicit trust.

I mentioned no names, but I told him the story.
He was a kind-hearted, compassionate man, but he decided that the husband should be told.
Such a woman, he said, must have unnatural qualities; could not possibly be one fitted for any man to trust.

She might be insane.

She might be subject to mania--a thousand things might occur which made it, he thought, quite imperative that such a secret should not be withheld from her husband.
Others had had a share in it, and there was no doubt but that it would eventually become known; better hear it from the lips of a friend than from the lips of a foe.
"Perhaps," he advised, "it might be as well for you to speak to her first; it would give her a fair chance." If it were not true, she could deny it, although if she proved to be innocent, and I had made a mistake, I deserved what I should no doubt get; if she were guilty and owned it, she would have some warning at least.