You are, I am afraid, far more urgently in need of medical advice than your daughter.' He put some questions to me, which I was at first inclined to treat lightly enough, until I observed that my answers distressed him.

It ended in his making an appointment to come and see me, accompanied by a medical friend, on the next day, at an hour when Rachel would not be at home.

The result of that visit--most kindly and gently conveyed to me--satisfied both the physicians that there had been precious time lost, which could never be regained, and that my case had now passed beyond the reach of their art.
For more than two years I have been suffering under an insidious form of heart disease, which, without any symptoms to alarm me, has, by little and little, fatally broken me down.

I may live for some months, or I may die before another day has passed over my head--the doctors cannot, and dare not, speak more positively than this.

It would be vain to say, my dear, that I have not had some miserable moments since my real situation has been made known to me.