s. Julius Beaufort"--and had then closed it again
on the two ladies. They must have been together, he thought, about an
hour. When Mrs. Mingott's bell rang Mrs. Beaufort had already slipped
away unseen, and the old lady, white and vast and terrible, sat alone
in her great chair, and signed to the butler to help her into her room.
She seemed, at that time, though obviously distressed, in complete
control of her body and brain. The mulatto maid put her to bed,
brought her a cup of tea as usual, laid everything straight in the
room, and went away; but at three in the morning the bell rang again,
and the two servants, hastening in at this unwonted summons (for old
Catherine usually slept like a baby), had found their mistress sitting
up against her pillows with a crooked smile on her face and one little
hand hanging limp from its huge arm.

The stroke had clearly been a slight one, for she was able to
articulate and to make her wishes known; and soon after the doctor's
first visit she had begun to regain control of her facial muscles. But
the alarm had been great; and proportionately great was the indignation
when it was gathered from Mrs. Mingott's fragmentary phrases that
Regina Beaufort had come to ask her--incredible effrontery!--to back up
her husband, see them through--not to "desert" them, as she called
it--in fact to induce the whole family to cover and condone their
monstrous dishonour.

"I said to her: 'Honour's always been honour, and honesty honesty, in
Manson Mingott's house, and will be till I'm carried out of it feet
first,'" the old woman had stammered into her daughter's ear, in the
thick voice of the partly paralysed. "And when she said: 'But my
name, Auntie--my name's Regina Dallas,' I said: 'It was Beaufort when
he covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's
covered you with shame.'"

So much, with tears and gasps of horror, Mrs. Welland imparted,
blanched and demolished by the unwonted obligation of having at last to
fix her eyes on the unpleasant and the discreditable. "If only I could
keep it from your father-in-law: he always says: 'Augusta, for pity's
sake, don't destroy my last illusions'--and how am I to prevent his
knowing these horrors?" the poor lady wailed.

"After all, Mamma, he won't have SEEN them," her daughter suggested;
and Mrs. Welland sighed: "Ah, no; thank heaven he's safe in bed. And
Dr. Bencomb has promised to keep him there till poor Mamma is