CHAPTER XIV.
MARTYRDOM.
After this event Lady Karpathy was very seriously ill; for a long time her life was even despaired of.

Karpathy summoned the most famous doctors in the world to attend to her, and they consulted and prescribed for her, but none of them could tell what was the matter.

It is a great pity that nobody knows how to prescribe for the heart.
For a long time she was delirious, and talked a lot of nonsense, as sick people generally do whose fevered brains are full of phantoms.
A soft smooth hand stroked her burning forehead from time to time.

It was the hand of Flora, who watched by the sick-bed night and day, denying herself sleep, denying herself even the sight of her husband, despite the terrifying suggestions of Dame Marion, who maintained that Madame Karpathy was sickening for small-pox.
If that had been all the poor woman was suffering from, how little it would have been! At last Nature triumphed.

A young constitution usually struggles more severely with Death than an old one, and throws him off more quickly.
Fanny was delivered from death.