Fitzpiers had hardly been gone an hour when Grace began to sicken. The
next day she kept her room. Old Jones was called in; he murmured some
statements in which the words "feverish symptoms" occurred. Grace
heard them, and guessed the means by which she had brought this
visitation upon herself.

One day, while she still lay there with her head throbbing, wondering
if she were really going to join him who had gone before, Grammer
Oliver came to her bedside. "I don't know whe'r this is meant for you
to take, ma'am," she said, "but I have found it on the table. It was
left by Marty, I think, when she came this morning."

Grace turned her hot eyes upon what Grammer held up. It was the phial
left at the hut by her husband when he had begged her to take some
drops of its contents if she wished to preserve herself from falling a
victim to the malady which had pulled down Winterborne. She examined
it as well as she could. The liquid was of an opaline hue, and bore a
label with an inscription in Italian. He had probably got it in his
wanderings abroad. She knew but little Italian, but could understand
that the cordial was a febrifuge of some sort. Her father, her mother,
and all the household were anxious for her recovery, and she resolved
to obey her husband's directions. Whatever the risk, if any, she was
prepared to run it. A glass of water was brought, and the drops
dropped in.