back had been turned
towards her, he would hardly have known who was speaking to him.

"I must ask you to make allowances for me," she began, abruptly; "I
hardly know what to say. This surprise comes at a time when I am badly
prepared for it. I am getting well; but, you see, I am not quite so
strong as I was before that woman attacked me. My husband has gone
away--I don't know where--and has taken my children with him. Read
his note: but don't say anything. You must let me be quiet, or I can't
think."

She handed the letter to Mr. Null. He looked at her--read the few
words submitted to him--and looked at her again. For once, his stock of
conventional phrases failed him. Who could have anticipated such conduct
on the part of her husband? Who could have supposed that she herself
would have been affected in this way, by the return of her son?

Mrs. Gallilee drew a long heavy breath. "I have got it now," she said.
"My son is coming home in a hurry because of Carmina's illness. Has
Carmina written to him?"

Mr. Null was in his element again: this question appealed to his
knowledge of his patient. "Impossible, Mrs. Gallilee--in her present
state of health."

"In her present state of health? I forgot that. There was something
else. Oh, yes! Has Carmina seen the telegram?"

Mr. Null explained. He had just come from Carmina. In his medical
capacity, he had thought it judicious to try the moral effect on his
patient of a first allusion to the good news. He had only ventured to
say that Mr. Ovid's agents in Canada had heard from him on his travels,
and had reason to believe that he would shortly return to Quebec. Upon
the whole, the impression produced on the young lady--

It was useless to go on. Mrs. Gallilee was pursuing her own thoughts,
without even the pretence of listening to him.

"I want to know who wrote to my son," she persisted. "Was it the nurse?"

Mr. Null considered this to be in the last degree unlikely. The nurse's
language showed a hostile feeling towards Mr. Ovid, in consequence of
his absence.

Mrs. Gallilee looked once more at the telegram. "Why," she asked, "does
Ovid telegraph to You?"

Mr. Null answered with his customary sense of what was due to himself.
"As the medical attendant of the family, your son naturally supposed,
madam, that Miss Carmina was under my care."

The implied reproof produced no effect. "I wonder whether my son was
afraid to trust us?" was all Mrs. Gallilee said. It was