ents took place
which brought Mrs. Stevenson almost to the verge of nervous
prostration. The night before her husband's departure a peasant on the
estate died of the prevailing disease, and for some unknown reason the
body, much swollen and disfigured, was permitted to lie just outside
the gate during the entire morning. Next in the chapter of unfortunate
accidents was the failure to reach her of the promised telegram
announcing Louis's safe arrival at Nice. After four days' anxious
waiting she decided to follow him, and her subsequent adventures may
best be told in her own language as written to her mother-in-law:

"The fourth night I went to Marseilles and telegraphed to the _gare_
and the police at Nice. All the people said it was no use, and that it
was plain that he had been taken with a violent hemorrhage on the way
and was now dead and buried at some little station. They said all I
could do was to pack up and go back to Scotland. All were very kind in
a dreadful way, but assured me that I had much better accept what '_le
bon Dieu_' had sent and go back to Scotland at once. After much
telegraphing back and forth I found that Louis was at the Grand Hotel
at Nice, and when I reached there he was calmly reading in bed. At St.
Marcel and Marseilles every one was furious with me; they were all
fond of Louis and said I had let a dying man go off alone. You may
imagine my feelings all this time!"

As though all that went before had not been enough, her return journey
to St. Marcel was made so uncomfortable by a tactless fellow passenger
that she arrived in a state of complete exhaustion. Of this she
writes:

"I have had a miserable time altogether, and the people, meaning to be
so kind, were really so dreadful. There was a man on the train, an
Englishman, who said such terrible things to me about Louis that when
we reached Marseilles another Englishman[22] who had been in the
carriage came to me and spoke about it, saying he had been so wretched
all the time. He insisted on stopping his journey a day to help me in
my affairs. Here is a specimen of the horrid person's talk: 'What are
you going to do when your husband dies?' 'I don't expect him to die.'
'Oh, I know all about that. I've heard that kind of talk before. He's
done for, and in this country they'll shovel him underground in
twenty-four hours, almost before the breath is out of his body. His
mother'll never see him again.' I do not speak but look intently out