At the end of the month the two great surgeons returned, at our own doctor's request. I awaited them with perfect assurance and tranquillity. When they came in to me they still looked perturbed. They told me that they had examined my mother, and found all traces of the malady had disappeared. They could not account for it, they reiterated their former diagnosis, dwelling upon certain facts, in very natural self-justification. They expressed, in the very kindest manner, their deep regret for all the suffering and anxiety they must have caused me, and said how very lucky it was that no one had been made aware of their original convictions, save myself. The case was extraordinary, abnormal, there was nothing more to say. Then they went away for the last time.
My father was greatly puzzled at their refusing to accept any fee, and to the day of his death our own doctor, whenever he found me alone, referred to the case as the most marvelous he had ever come across. My mother quite regained her health, and died many years after from lung trouble.
One other great sacrifice I had to make a year or two after. My father was entirely confined to bed with a severe attack of internal hemorrhage, and at the same time my youngest sister was threatened with consumption. She was ordered to go to the South of France immediately.
It was decided that I must go with her, as she could not be trusted to strangers. My mother, absolutely restored to health, would be left with my father, who had also a good nurse valet.
My father and I bade each other farewell one early morning in February, 1888. We knew we would not meet again on earth.
Only one other curious incident do I remember in connection with that town house we lived in. On the night of the 28th December we were all assembled in the library, most of us were reading, and a violent wind storm was howling round the house. Suddenly my father laid down the proof sheets he was correcting, and took out his watch. Then he turned to us and said: "At this moment, seven fifteen, on Sunday the 28th of December, 1879, something terrible has happened. I think a bridge must be down."
The next day we learned that the Tay Bridge had been blown down at that very hour, and the train and its occupants hurled to death in the waters below.