Surely , Miriam , you are not so foolish as to really believe in that ! ' '' ' I know , ' she answered quickly . ` Belief or disbelief has nothing to do with it . Yes , I have had a message . I know that some accident has happened to Sidney -- painful and inconvenient but not particularly dangerous . I do not know what it is . Sidney will write me that . He writes when it is absolutely necessary . ' '' ` Aerial communication is n't perfected yet then ? ' I said mischievously . But , observing how really worried she seemed , I added , ` Do n't fret , Miriam . You may be mistaken . ' `` Well , two days afterwards she got a note from her lover -- the first I had ever known her to receive -- in which he said he had been thrown from his horse and had broken his left arm . It had happened the very morning Miriam received her message . `` Miriam had been with us about eight months when one day she came into my room hurriedly . She was very pale . '' ` Sidney is ill -- dangerously ill . What shall I do ? ' `` I knew she must have had another of those abominable messages -- or thought she had -- and really , remembering the incident of the broken arm , I could n't feel as sceptical as I pretended to . I tried to cheer her , but did not succeed .
Two hours later she had a telegram from her lover 's college chum , saying XXXXX Mr. Claxton was dangerously ill with typhoid fever .
Miriam as from in into months of that to with