If Walderhurst would come home--" Lady Walderhurst put out her hand to a letter which lay on the table.
"I heard from him this morning," she said.

"And he has been sent to the Hills because he has a little fever.

He must be quiet.

So you see he _cannot_ come yet." She was shivering, though she was determined to keep still.
"What was in the milk ?" she asked.
"In the milk there was the Indian root Ameerah gave the village girl.
Last night as I sat under a tree in the dark I heard it talked over.
Only a few native women know it." There was a singular gravity in the words poor Lady Walderhurst spoke in reply.
"That," she said, "would have been the cruelest thing of all." Mrs.Osborn got up and came close to her.
"If you had gone out on Faustine," she said, "you would have met with _an accident_.

It might or might not have killed you.