wn it."

"May I ask when?"

"This morning."

Mr. Le Frank said no more. If he was really wanted, Mrs. Gallilee
had only to speak. After a last moment of hesitation, the pitiless
necessities of her position decided her once more. "You see me too ill
to move," she said; "the first thing to do, is to tell you why."

She related the plain facts; without a word of comment, without a sign
of emotion. But her husband's horror of her had left an impression,
which neither pride nor contempt had been strong enough to resist. She
allowed the music-master to infer, that contending claims to authority
over Carmina had led to a quarrel which provoked the assault. The secret
of the words that she had spoken, was the one secret that she kept from
Mr. Le Frank.

"While I was insensible," she proceeded, "my niece was taken away from
me. She has been suffering from nervous illness; she was naturally
terrified--and she is now at the nurse's lodgings, too ill to be moved.
There you have the state of affairs, up to last night."

"Some people might think," Mr. Le Frank remarked, "that the easiest way
out of it, so far, would be to summon the nurse for the assault."

"The easiest way compels me to face a public exposure," Mrs. Gallilee
answered. "In my position that is impossible."

Mr. Le Frank accepted this view of the case as a matter of course.
"Under the circumstances," he said, "it's not easy to advise you. How
can you make the woman submit to your authority, while you are lying
here?"

"My lawyers have made her submit this morning."

In the extremity of his surprise, Mr. Le Frank forgot himself. "The
devil they have!" he exclaimed.

"They have forbidden her, in my name," Mrs. Gallilee continued, "to act
as nurse to my niece. They have informed her that Miss Carmina will be
restored to my care, the moment she can be moved. And they have sent me
her unconditional submission in writing, signed by herself."

She took it from the desk at her side, and read it to him, in these
words:

"I humbly ask pardon of Mrs. Gallilee for the violent and unlawful acts
of which I have been guilty. I acknowledge, and submit to, her authority
as guardian of Miss Carmina Graywell. And I appeal to her mercy (which I
own I have not deserved) to spare me the misery of separation from Miss
Carmina, on any conditions which it may be her good will and pleasure to
impose."

"Now," Mrs. Galilee concluded, "what do you say?"

Speaking sincerely for