The slander on which Mrs. Gallilee had reckoned, as a means of separating Ovid and Carmina, was now a slander refuted by unanswerable proof. And the man whose exertions had achieved this result, was her own lawyer — the agent whom she had designed to employ, in asserting that claim of the guardian over the ward which Teresa had defied.

As a necessary consequence, the relations between Mr. Mool and herself were already at an end.

There she lay helpless — her authority set at naught; her person outraged by a brutal attack — there she lay, urged to action by every reason that a resolute woman could have for asserting her power, and avenging her wrong — without a creature to take her part, without an accomplice to serve her purpose.

She got on her feet, with the resolution of despair. Her heart sank — the room whirled round her — she dropped back on the sofa. In a recumbent position, the giddiness subsided. She could ring the hand-bell on the table at her side. “Send instantly for Mr. Null,” she said to the maid. “If he is out, let the messenger follow him, wherever he may be.”

The messenger came back with a note. Mr. Null would call on Mrs. Gallilee as soon as possible. He was then engaged in attendance on Miss Carmina.

At that discovery, Mrs. Gallilee’s last reserves of independent resolution gave way. The services of her own medical attendant were only at her disposal, when Carmina had done with him! At the top of his letter the address, which she had thus far tried vainly to discover, stared her in the face: the house was within five minutes’ walk — and she was not even able to cross the room! For the first time in her life, Mrs. Gallilee’s imperious spirit acknowledged defeat. For the first time in her life, she asked herself the despicable question: Who can I find to help me?

Someone knocked at the door.

“Who is it?” she cried.

Joseph’s voice answered her. “Mr. Le Frank has called, ma’am — and wishes to know if you can see him.”

She never stopped to think. She never even sent for the maid to see to her personal appearance. The horror of her own helplessness drove her on. Here was the man, whose timely betrayal of Carmina had stopped her on her way to Ovid, in the nick of time! Here was the self-devoted instrument, waiting to be employed.

“I’ll see Mr. Le Frank,” she said. “Show him up.”

The music-master looked round the obscurely lit room, and bowed to the recumbent figure on the sofa.

“I fear I disturb you, madam, at an inconvenient time.”

“I am suffering from illness, Mr. Le Frank; but I am able to receive you — as you see.”

She stopped there. Now, when she saw him, and heard him, some perverse hesitation in her began to doubt him. Now, when it was too late, she weakly tried to put herself on her guard. What a decay of energy (she felt it herself) in the ready and resolute woman, equal to any emergency at other times! “To what am I to attribute the favour of your visit?” she resumed.

Even her voice failed her: it faltered in spite of her efforts to steady it. Mr. Le Frank’s vanity drew its own encouraging conclusion from this one circumstance.

“I am anxious to know how I stand in your estimation,” he replied. “Early this evening, I left a few lines here, enclosing a letter — with my compliments. Have you received the letter?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read it?”

Mrs. Gallilee hesitated. Mr. Le Frank smiled.

“I won’t trouble you, madam, for any more direct reply,” he said; “I will speak plainly. Be so good as to tell me plainly, on your side, which I am — a man who has disgraced himself by stealing a letter? or a man who has distinguished himself by doing you a service?”

An unpleasant alternative, neatly defined! To disavow Mr. Le Frank or to use Mr. Le Frank — there was the case for Mrs. Gallilee’s consideration. She was incapable of pronouncing judgment; the mere effort of decision, after what she had suffered, fatigued and irritated her. “I can’t deny,” she said, with weary resignation, “that you have done me a service.”

He rose, and made a generous return for the confidence that had been placed in him — he repeated his magnificent bow, and sat down again.

“Our position towards each other seems too plain to be mistaken,” he proceeded. “Your niece’s letter — perfectly useless for the purpose with which I opened it — offers me a means of being even with Miss Carmina, and a chance of being useful to You. Shall I begin by keeping an eye on the young lady?”

“Is that said, Mr. Le Frank, out of devotion to me?”

“My devotion to you might wear out,” he answered audaciously. “You may trust my feeling towards your niece to last — I never forget an injury. Is it indiscreet to inquire how you mean to keep Miss Carmina from joining her lover in Quebec? Does a guardian’s authority extend to locking her up in her room?”

Mrs. Gallilee felt the underlying familiarity in these questions — elaborately concealed as it was under an assumption of respect.

“My niece is no longer in my house,” she answered coldly.

“Gone!” cried Mr. Le Frank.

She corrected the expression. “Removed,” she said, and dropped the subject there.

Mr. Le Frank took the subject up again. “Removed, I presume, under the care of her nurse?” he rejoined.

The nurse? What did he know about the nurse? “May I ask —?” Mrs. Gallilee began.

He smiled indulgently, and stopped her there. “You are not quite yourself to-night,” he said. “Permit me to remind you that your niece’s letter to Mr. Ovid Vere is explicit, and that I took the liberty of reading it before I left it at your house.”

Mrs. Gallilee listened in silence, conscious that she had committed another error. She had carefully excluded from her confidence a man who was already in possession of her secrets! Mr. Le Frank’s courteous sympathy forbade him to take advantage ............