ended
quietly, the beginnings of great gratitude in her heart. They were
feelings born but to die. Just at the head of the stairs she encountered
Cally, emerging like an apparition from the door of the family
sitting-room. The girl spoke in a small voice:

"Mamma, I want to send for Dr. Vivian--to come and see me."

Mamma, just thinking that this madness was finally disposed of, was
taken suddenly. Even the birthmark on her temple, which was partially
exposed, seemed to turn pale....

But once more Carlisle carried her extraordinary point. Ever since she
was a little girl she had been subject to these incalculable fits, when
punishment made her ill, but did not conquer the seven devils that
possessed her. Mrs. Heth, frantic after nearly an hour's thundering,
vanished into the telephone-booth, bent upon reaching Mr. Heth while
there was yet time. But even now her strongest thought was that Cally
was a sensible girl at heart, in the last pinch simply incapable of
self-destructive folly.

Cally, also, had thought of the telephone. But the sight of it, after
last night, unnerved her. She withdrew to the little desk in
her bedroom.

So the word of the Lord came to the Dabney House, by the hand of an old
negro gentleman.

* * * * *

He was standing in the middle of the floor, when Carlisle went down, an
inconsonant figure amid the showy splendors of the Heth drawing-room. So
much appeared to the most casual observation. Far deeper to the
understanding eye went the inconsistency of this man's presence here, in
an hour of appalling intimacy.

Carlisle, entering through the uncurtained doorway, halted involuntarily
just over the threshold. Her eye, at least, saw all. And she was
abruptly and profoundly affected by the sight of him in her familiar
background, the author of the Beach opinion of her, who truly had never
meant anything but trouble for her since the first moment she saw him.
Time, indeed, had given the religious fellow his last full measure of
revenge....

Prepared speeches of some dignity and length slipped from her. Cally
spoke from her heart and her fear, without greeting, in a nervous
childish voice:

"I--I wanted to see you, to--to ask you--to talk with you--as to what
must be done...."

Jack Dalhousie's friend bowed gravely. There was no victory on his face,
neither was there any judgment.

"I understood," he said simply, "and was grateful to you."

He, certainl