In the present posture of events, to arrive at that conclusion was enough for Mrs. Gallilee. Without stopping to pursue the idea, she rang the bell, and ordered her carriage to be ready that afternoon, at three o'clock.

Doubtful, and more than doubtful, though it might be, the bare prospect of finding herself possessed, before the day was out, of a means of action capable of being used against Carmina, raised Mrs. Gallilee's spirits. She was ready at last to attend to her correspondence.

One of the letters was from her sister in Scotland. Among other subjects, it referred to Carmina.

"Why won't you let that sweet girl come and stay with us?" Lady Northlake asked. "My daughters are longing for such a companion; and both my sons are ready to envy Ovid the moment they see her. Tell my nephew, when you next write, that I thoroughly understand his falling in love with that gentle pretty creature at first sight."

Carmina's illness was the ready excuse which presented itself in Mrs. Gallilee's reply. With or without an excuse, Lady Northlake was to be resolutely prevented from taking a foremost place in her niece's heart, and encouraging the idea of her niece's marriage. Mrs. Gallilee felt almost pious enough to thank Heaven that her sister's palace in the Highlands was at one end of Great Britain, and her own marine villa at the other!

The marine villa reminded her of the family migration to the sea-side.

When would it be desirable to leave London? Not until her mind was relieved of the heavier anxieties that now weighed on it. Not while events might happen—in connection with the threatening creditors or the contemplated marriage—which would baffle her latest calculations, and make her presence in London a matter of serious importance to her own interests. Miss Minerva, again, was a new obstacle in the way. To take her to the Isle of Wight was not to be thought of for a moment. To dismiss her at once, by paying the month's salary, might be the preferable course to pursue—but for two objections. In the first place (if the friendly understanding between them really continued) Carmina might communicate with the discarded governess in secret. In the second place, to pay Miss Minerva's salary before she had earned it, was a concession from which Mrs. Gallilee's spite, and Mrs. Gallilee's principles of paltry economy, recoiled in disgust. No! the waiting policy in London, under whatever aspect it might be viewed, was, for the present, the one policy to pursue.

She returned to the demands of her correspondence. Just as she had taken up her pen, the sanctuary of the boudoir was violated by the appearance of a servant.

"What is it now? Didn't the housekeeper tell you that I am not to be disturbed?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. My master—"

"What does your master want?"

"He wishes to see you, ma'am."

This was a circumstance entirely without parallel in the domestic history of the house. In sheer astonishment, Mrs. Gallilee pushed away her letters, and said "Show him in."

When the boys of fifty years since were naughty, the schoolmaster of the period was not accustomed to punish them by appealing to their sense of honour. If a boy wanted a flogging, in those days, the educational system seized a cane, or a birch-rod, and gave it to him. Mr. Gallilee entered his wife's room, with the feelings which had once animated him, on entering the schoolmaster's study to be caned. When he said "Good-morning, my dear!" his face presented the expression of fifty years since, when he had said, "Please, sir, let me off this time!"

"Now," said Mrs. Gallilee, "what do you want?"

"Only a little word. How well you're looking, my dear!"

After a sleepless night, followed by her defeat in Carmina's room, Mrs. Gallilee looked, and knew that she looked, ugly and old. And her wretched husband had reminded her of it. "Go on!" she answered sternly.

Mr. Gallilee moistened his dry lips. "I think I'll take a chair, if you will allow me," he said. Having taken his chair (at a respectful distance from his wife), he looked all round the room with the air of a visitor who had never seen it before. "How very pretty!" he remarked softly. "Such taste in colour. I think the carpet was your own design, wasn't it? How chaste!"

"Will you come to the point, Mr. Gallilee?"

"With pleasure, my dear—with pleasure. I'm afraid I smell of tobacco?"

"I don't care if you do!"

This was such an agreeable surprise to Mr. Gallilee, that he got on his legs again to enjoy it standing up. "How kind! Really now, how kind!" He approached Mrs. Gallilee confidentially. "And do you know, my dear, it was one of the most remarkable cigars I ever smoked." Mrs. Gallilee laid down her pen, and eyed him with an annihilating frown. In the extremity of his confusion Mr. Gallilee ventured nearer. He felt the sinister fascination of the serpent in the expression of those awful eyebrows. "How well you are looking! How amazingly well you are looking this morning!" He leered at his learned wife, and patted her shoulder!

For the moment, Mrs. Gallilee was petrified. At his time of life, was this fat and feeble creature approaching her with conjugal endearments? At that early hour of the day, had his guilty lips tasted his favourite champagne, foaming in his well-beloved silver mug, over his much-admired lump of ice? And was this the result?

"Mr. Gallilee!"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Sit down!"

Mr. Gallilee sat down.

"Have you been to the club?"

Mr. Gallilee got up again.

"Sit down!"

Mr. Gallilee sat down. "I was about to say, my dear, that I'll show you over the club with the greatest pleasure—if that's what you mean."

"If you are not a downright idiot," said Mrs. Gallilee, "understand this! Either say what you have to say, or—" she lifted her hand, and let it down on the writing-table with a slap that made the pens ring in the inkstand—"or, leave the room!"

Mr. Gallilee lifted his hand, and searched in the breast-pocket of his coat. He pulled out his cigar-case, and put it back in a hurry. He tried again, and produced a letter. He looked piteously round the room, in sore need of somebody whom he might appeal to, and ended in appealing to himself. "What sort of temper will she be in?" he whispered.

"What have you got there?" Mrs. Gallilee asked sharply. "One of the letters you had this morning?"

Mr. Gallilee looked at her with admiration. "Wonderful woman!" he said. "Nothing escapes her! Allow me, my dear."

He rose and presented the letter, as if he was presenting a petition. Mrs. Gallilee snatched it out of his hand. Mr. Gallilee went softly back to his chair, and breathed a devout ejaculation. "Oh, Lord!"

It was a letter from one of the tradespeople, whom Mrs. Gallilee had attempted to pacify with a payment "on account." The tradesman felt compelled, in justice to himself, to appeal to Mr. Gallilee, as master of the house (!). It was impossible for him (he submitted with the greatest respect) to accept a payment, which did not amount to one-third of the sum owing to him for more than a twelvemonth. "Wretch!" cried Mrs. Gallilee. "I'll settle his bill, and never employ him again!" She opened her cheque-book, and dipped her pen in the ink. A faint voice meekly protested. Mr. Gallilee was on his legs again. Mr. Gallilee said. "Please don't!"

His incredible rashness silenced his wife. There he stood; his round eyes staring at the cheque-book, his fat cheeks quivering with excitement. "You mustn't do it," he said, with a first and last outburst of courage. "Give me a minute, my dear—oh, good gracious, give me a minute!"

He searched in his pocket again, and produced another letter. His eyes wandered towards the door; drops of perspiration oozed out on his forehead. He laid the second letter on the table; he looked at his wife, and—ran out of the room.

Mrs. Gallilee opened the second letter. Another dissatisfied tradesman? No: creditors far more formidable than the grocer and the butcher. An official letter from the bankers, informing Mr. Gallilee that "the account was overdrawn."

She seized her pass-book, and her paper of calculations. Never yet had her rigid arithmetic committed an error. Column by column she revised her figures—and made the humiliating discovery of her first mistake. She had drawn out all, and more than all, the money deposited in the bank; and the next half-yearly payment of income was not due until Christmas.

There was but one thing to be done—to go at once to the bank. If Ovid had not been in the wilds of Canada, Mrs. Gallilee would have made her confession to him without hesitation. As it was, the servant called a cab, and she made her confession to the bankers.

The matter was soon settled to her satisfaction. It rested (exactly as Miss Minerva had anticipated) with Mr. Gallilee. In the house, he might abdicate his authority to his heart's content. Out of the house, in matters of business, he was master still. His "investments" represented excellent "security;" he had only to say how much he wanted to borrow, and to sign certain papers—and the thing was done.

Mrs. Gallilee went home again, with her pecuniary anxieties at rest for the time. The carriage was waiting for her at the door.

Should she fulfil her intention of visiting Benjulia? She was not a person who readily changed her mind—and, besides, after the troubles of the morning, the drive into the country would be a welcome relief. Hearing that Mr. Gallilee was still at home, she looked in at the smoking-room. Unerring instinct told her where to find her husband, under present circumstances. There he was, enjoying his cigar in comfort, with his coat off and his feet on a chair. She opened the door. "I want you, this evening," she said—and shut the door again; leaving Mr. Gallilee suffocated by a mouthful of his own smoke.

Before getting into the carriage, she only waited to restore her face with a flush of health (from Paris), modified by a sprinkling of pallor (from London). Benjulia's humour was essentially an uncertain humour. It might be necessary to fascinate the doctor.



CHAPTER XXX.

The complimentary allusion to Ovid, which Benjulia had not been able to understand, was contained in a letter from Mr. Morphew, and was expressed in these words:—"Let me sincerely thank you for making us acquainted with Mr. Ovid Vere. Now that he has left us, we really feel as if we had said good-bye to an old friend. I don't know when I have met with such a perfectly unselfish man—and I say this, speaking from experience of him. In my unavoidable absence, he volunteered to attend a serious case of illness, accompanied by shocking circumstances—and this at a time when, as you know, his own broken health forbids him to undertake any professional duty. While he could preserve the patient's life—and he did wonders, in this way—he was every day at the bedside, taxing his strength in the service of a perfect stranger. I fancy I see you (with your impatience of letter-writing at any length) looking to the end. Don't be alarmed. I am writing to your brother Lemuel by this mail, and I have little time to spare."

Was this "serious case of illness"—described as being "accompanied by shocking circumstances"—a case of disease of the brain?

There was the question, proposed by Benjulia's inveterate suspicion of Ovid! The bare doubt cost him the loss of a day's work. He reviled poor Mr. Morphew as "a born idiot" for not having plainly stated what the patient's malady was, instead of wasting paper on smooth sentences, encumbered by long words. If Ovid had alluded to his Canadian patient in his letters to his mother, his customary preciseness of language might be trusted to relieve Benjulia's suspense. With that purpose in view, the doctor had written to Mrs. Gallilee.

Before he laid down his pen, he looked once more at Mr. Morphew's letter, and paused thoughtfully over one line: "I am writing to your brother Lemuel by this mail."

The information of which he was in search might be in that letter. If Mrs. Gallilee's correspondence with her son failed to enlighten him, here was another chance of making the desired discovery. Surely the wise course to take would be to write to Lemuel as well.

His one motive for hesitating was dislike of his younger brother—dislike so inveterate that he even recoiled from communicating with Lemuel through the post.

There had never been any sympathy between them; but indifference had only matured into downright enmity, on the doctor's part, a year since. Accident (the result of his own absence of mind, while he was perplexed by an unsuccessful experiment) had placed Lemuel in possession of his hideous secret. The one person in the world who knew how he was really occupied in the laboratory, was his brother.

Here was the true motive of the bitterly contemptuous tone in which Benjulia had spoken to Ovid of his nearest relation. Lemuel's character was certainly deserving of severe judgment, in some of its aspects. In his hours of employment (as clerk in the office of a London publisher) he steadily and punctually performed the duties entrusted to him. In his hours of freedom, his sensual instincts got the better of him; and his jealous wife had her reasons for complaint. Among his friends, he was the subject of a wide diversity of opinion. Some of them agreed with his brother in thinking him little better than a fool. Others suspected him of possessing natural abilities, but of being too lazy, perhaps too cunning, to exert them. In the office he allowed himself to be called "a mere machine"—and escaped the overwork which fell to the share of quicker men. When his wife and her relations declared him to be a mere animal, he never contradicted them—and so gained the reputation of a person on whom reprimand was thrown away. Under the protection of this unenviable character, he sometimes said severe things with an air of perfect simplicity. When the furious doctor discovered him in the laboratory, and said, "I'll be the death of you, if you tell any living creature what I am doing!"—Lemuel answered, with a stare of stupid astonishment, "Make your mind easy; I should be ashamed to mention it."

Further reflection decided Benjulia on writing. Even when he had a favour to ask, he was unable to address Lemuel with common politeness.

"I hear that Morphew has written to you by the last mail. I want to see the letter." So much he wrote, and no more. What was barely enough for the purpose, was enough for the doctor, when he addressed his brother.



CHAPTER XXXI.

Between one and two o'clock, the next afternoon, Benjulia (at work in his laboratory) heard the bell which announced the arrival of a visitor at the house. No matter what the circumstances might be, the servants were forbidden to disturb him at his studies in any other way.

Very unwillingly he obeyed the call, locking the door behind him. At that hour it was luncheon-time in well-regulated households, and it was in the last degree unlikely that Mrs. Gallilee could be the visitor. Getting within view of the front of the house, he saw a man standing on the doorstep. Advancing a little nearer, he recognised Lemuel.

"Hullo!" cried the elder brother.

"Hullo!" answered the younger, like an echo.

They stood looking at each other with the suspicious curiosity of two strange cats. Between Nathan Benjulia, the famous doctor, and Lemuel Benjulia, the publisher's clerk, there was just family resemblance enough to suggest that they were relations. The younger brother was only a little over the ordinary height; he was rather fat than thin; he wore a moustache and whiskers; he dressed smartly—and his prevailing expression announced that he was thoroughly well satisfied with himself. But he inherited Benjulia's gipsy complexion; and, in form and colour, he had Benjulia's eyes.

"How-d'ye-do, Nathan?" he said.

"What the devil brings you here?" was the answer.

Lemuel passed over his brother's rudeness without notice. His mouth curled up at the corners with a mischievous smile.

"I thought you wished to see my letter," he said.

"Why couldn't you send it by post?"

"My wife wished me to take the opportunity of calling on you."

"That's a lie," said Benjulia quietly. "Try another excuse. Or do a new thing. For once, speak the truth."

Without waiting to hear the truth, he led the way into the room in which he had received Ovid. Lemuel followed, still showing no outward appearance of resentment.

"How did you get away from your office?" Benjulia inquired.

"It's easy to get a holiday at this time of year. Business is slack, old boy—"

"Stop! I don't allow you to speak to me in that way."

"No offence, brother Nathan!"

"Brother Lemuel, I never allow a fool to offend me. I put him in his place—that's all."

The distant barking of a dog became audible from the lane by which the house was approached. The sound seemed to annoy Benjulia. "What's that?" he asked.

Lemuel saw his way to making some return for his brother's reception of him.

"It's my dog," he said; "and it's lucky for you that I have left him in the cab."

"Why?"

"Well, he's as sweet-tempered a dog as ever lived. But he has one fault. He doesn't take kindly to scientific gentlemen in your line of business." Lemuel paused, and pointed to his brother's hands. "If he smelt that, he might try his teeth at vivisecting You."

The spots of blood which Ovid had once seen on Benjulia's stick, were on his hands now. With unruffled composure he looked at the horrid stains, silently telling their tale of torture.

"What's the use of washing my hands," he answered, "when I am going back to my work?"

He wiped his finger and thumb on the tail of his coat. "Now," he resumed, "if you have got your letter with you, let me look at it."

Lemuel produced the letter. "There are some bits in it," he explained, "which you had better not see. If you want the truth—that's the reason I brought it myself. Read the first page-and then I'll tell you where to skip."

So far, there was no allusion to Ovid. Benjulia turned to the second page—and Lemuel pointed to the middle of it. "Read as far as that," he went on, "and then skip till you come to the last bit at the end."

On the last page, Ovid's name appeared. He was mentioned, as a "delightful person, introduced by your brother,"—and with that the letter ended. In the first bitterness of his disappointment, Benjulia conceived an angry suspicion of those portions of the letter which he had been requested to pass over unread.

"What has Morphew got to say to you that I mustn't read?" he asked.

"Suppose you tell me first, what you want to find in the letter," Lemuel rejoined. "Morphew is a doctor like you. Is it anything medical?"

Benjulia answered this in the easiest way—he nodded his head.

"Is it Vivisection?" Lemuel inquired slyly.

Benjulia at once handed the letter back, and pointed to the door. His momentary interest in the suppressed passages was at an end. "That will do," he answered. "Take yourself and your letter away."

"Ah," said Lemuel, "I'm glad you don't want to look at it again!" He put the letter away, and buttoned his coat, and tapped his pocket significantly. "You have got a nasty temper, Nathan—and there are things here that might try it."

In the case of any other man, Benjulia would have seen that the one object of these prudent remarks was to irritate him. Misled by his profound conviction of his brother's stupidity, he now thought it possible that the concealed portions of the letter might be worth notice. He stopped Lemuel at the door. "I've changed my mind," he said; "I want to look at the letter again."

"You had better not," Lemuel persisted. "Morphew's going to write a book against you—and he asks me to get it published at our place. I'm on his side, you know; I shall do my best to help him; I can lay my hand on literary fellows who will lick his style into shape—it will be an awful exposure!" Benjulia still held out his hand. With over-acted reluctance, Lemuel unbuttoned his coat. The distant dog barked again as he gave the letter back. "Please excuse my dear old dog," he said with maudlin tenderness; "the poor dumb animal seems to know that I'm taking his side in the controversy. Bow-wow means, in his language, Fie upon the cruel hands that bore holes in our head and use saws on our backs. Ah, Nathan, if you have got any dogs in that horrid place of yours, pat them and give them their dinner! You never heard me talk like this before—did you? I'm a new man since I joined the Society for suppressing you. Oh, if I only had the gift of writing!"

The effect of this experiment on his brother's temper, failed to fulfil Lemuel's expectations. The doctor's curiosity was roused on the doctor's own subject of inquiry.

"You're quite right about one thing," said Benjulia gravely; "I never heard you talk in this way before. You suggest some interesting considerations, of the medical sort. Come to the light." He led Lemuel to the window—looked at him with the closest attention—and carefully consulted his pulse. Lemuel smiled. "I'm not joking," said Benjulia sternly. "Tell me this. Have you had headaches lately? Do you find your memory failing you?"

As he put those questions, he thought to himself—seriously thought—"Is this fellow's brain softening? I wish I had him on my table!"

Lemuel persisted in presenting himself under a sentimental aspect. He had not forgiven his elder brother's rudeness yet—and he knew, by experience, the one weakness in Benjulia's character which, with his small resources, it was possible to attack.

"Thank you for your kind inquiries," he replied. "Never mind my head, so long as my heart's in the right place. I don't pretend to be clever—but I've got my feelings; and I could put some awkward questions on what you call Medical Research, if I had Morphew to help me."

"I'll help you," said Benjulia—interested in developing the state of his brother's brain.

"I don't believe you," said Lemuel—interested in developing the state of his brother's temper.

"Try me, Lemuel."

"All right, Nathan."

The two brothers returned to their chairs; reduced for once to the same moral level.



CHAPTER XXXII.

"Now," said Benjulia, "what is it to be? The favourite public bugbear? Vivisection?"

"Yes."

"Very well. What can I do for you?"

"Tell me first," said Lemuel, "what is Law?"

"Nobody knows."

"Well, then, what ought it to be?"

"Justice, I suppose."

"Let me wait a bit, Nathan, and get that into my mind."

Benjulia waited with exemplary patience.

"Now about yourself," Lemuel continued. "You won't be offended—will you? Should I be right, if I called you a dissector of living creatures?"

Benjulia was reminded of the day when he had discovered his brother in the laboratory. His dark complexion deepened in hue. His cold gray eyes seemed to promise a coming outbreak. Lemuel went on.

"Does the Law forbid you to make your experiments on a man?" he asked.

"Of course it does!"

"Why doesn't the Law forbid you to make your experiments on a dog?"

Benjulia's face cleared again. The one penetrable point in his ironclad nature had not been reached yet. That apparently childish question about the dog appeared, not only to have interested him, but to have taken him by surprise. His attention wandered away from his brother. His clear intellect put Lemuel's objection in closer logical form, and asked if there was any answer to it, thus:

The Law which forbids you to dissect a living man, allows you to dissect a living dog. Why?

There was positively no answer to this.

Suppose he said, Because a dog is an animal? Could he, as a physiologist, deny that a man is an animal too?

Suppose he said, Because a dog is the inferior creature in intellect? The obvious answer to this would be, But the lower order of savage, or the lower order of lunatic, compared with the dog, is the inferior creature in intellect; and, in these cases, the dog has, on your own showing, the better right to protection of the two.

Suppose he said, Because a man is a creature with a soul, and a dog is a creature without a soul? This would be simply inviting another unanswerable question: How do you know?

Honestly accepting the dilemma which thus presented itself, the conclusion that followed seemed to be beyond dispute.

If the Law, in the matter of Vivisection, asserts the principle of interference, the Law has barred its right to place arbitrary limits on its own action. If it protects any living creatures, it is bound, in reason and in justice, to protect all.

"Well," said Lemuel, "am I to have an answer?"

"I'm not a lawyer."

With this convenient reply, Benjulia opened Mr. Morphew's letter, and read the forbidden part of it which began on the second page. There he found the very questions with which his brother had puzzled him—followed by the conclusion at which he had himself arrived!

"You interpreted the language of your dog just now," he said quietly to Lemuel; "and I naturally supposed your brain might be softening. Such as it is, I perceive that your memory is in working order. Accept my excuses for feeling your pulse. You have ceased to be an object of interest to me."

He returned to his reading. Lemuel watched him—still confidently waiting for results.

The letter proceeded in these terms:

"Your employer may perhaps be inclined to publish my work, if I can satisfy him that it will address itself to the general reader.

"We all know what are the false pretences, under which English physiologists practice their cruelties. I want to expose those false pretences in the simplest and plainest way, by appealing to my own experience as an ordinary working member of the medical profession.

"Take the pretence of increasing our knowledge of the curative action of poisons, by trying them on animals. The very poisons, the action of which dogs and cats have been needlessly tortured to demonstrate, I have successfully used on my human patients in the practice of a lifetime.

"I should also like to ask what proof there is that the effect of a poison on an animal may be trusted to inform us, with certainty, of the effect of the same poison on a man. To quote two instances only which justify doubt—and to take birds this time, by way of a change—a pigeon will swallow opium enough to kill a man, and will not be in the least affected by it; and parsley, which is an innocent herb in the stomach of a human being, is deadly poison to a parrot.

"I should deal in the same way, with the other pretence, of improving our practice of surgery by experiment on living animals.

"Not long since, I saw the diseased leg of a dog cut off at the hip joint. When the limb was removed, not a single vessel bled. Try the same operation on a man—and twelve or fifteen vessels must be tied as a matter of absolute necessity.

"Again. We are told by a great authority that the baking of dogs in ovens has led to new discoveries in treating fever. I have always supposed that the heat, in fever, is not a cause of disease, but a consequence. However, let that be, and let us still stick to experience. Has this infernal cruelty produced results which help us to cure scarlet fever? Our bedside practice tells us that scarlet fever runs it course as it always did. I can multiply such examples as these by hundreds when I write my book.

"Briefly stated, you now have the method by which I propose to drag the scientific English Savage from his shelter behind the medical interests of humanity, and to show him in his true character,—as plainly as the scientific Foreign Savage shows himself of his own accord. He doesn't shrink behind false pretences. He doesn't add cant to cruelty. He boldly proclaims the truth:—I do it, because I like it!"

Benjulia rose, and threw the letter on the floor.

"I proclaim the truth," he said; "I do it because I like it. There are some few Englishmen who treat ignorant public opinion with the contempt that it deserves—and I am one of them." He pointed scornfully to the letter. "That wordy old fool is right about the false pretences. Publish his book, and I'll buy a copy of it."

"That's odd," said Lemuel.

"What's odd?"

"Well, Nathan, I'm only a fool—but if you talk in that way of false pretences and public opinion, why do you tell everybody that your horrid cutting and carving is harmless chemistry? And why were you in such a rage when I got into your workshop, and found you out? Answer me that!"

"Let me congratulate you first," said Benjulia. "It isn't every fool who knows that he is a fool. Now you shall have your answer. Before the end of the year, all the world will be welcome to come into my workshop, and see me at the employment of my life. Brother Lemuel, when you stole your way through my unlocked door, you found me travelling on the road to the grandest medical discovery of this century. You stupid ass, do you think I cared about what you could find out? I am in such perpetual terror of being forestalled by my colleagues, that I am not master of myself, even when such eyes as yours look at my work. In a month or two more—perhaps in a week or two—I shall have solved the grand problem. I labour at it all day. I think of it, I dream of it, all night. It will kill me. Strong as I am, it will kill me. What do you say? Am I working myself into my grave, in the medical interests of humanity? That for humanity! I am working for my own satisfaction—for my own pride—for my own unutterable pleasure in beating other men—for the fame that will keep my name living hundreds of years hence. Humanity! I say with my foreign brethren—Knowledge for its own sake, is the one god I worship. Knowledge is its own justification and its own reward. The roaring mob follows us with its cry of Cruelty. We pity their ignorance. Knowledge sanctifies cruelty. The old anatomist stole dead bodies for Knowledge. In that sacred cause, if I could steal a living man without being found out, I would tie him on my table, and grasp my grand discovery in days, instead of months. Where are you going? What? You're afraid to be in the same room with me? A man who can talk as I do, is a man who would stick at nothing? Is that the light in which you lower order of creatures look at us? Look a little higher—and you will see that a man who talks as I do is a man set above you by Knowledge. Exert yourself, and try to understand me. Have I no virtues, even from your point of view? Am I not a good citizen? Don't I pay my debts? Don't I serve my friends? You miserable creature, you have had my money when you wanted it! Look at that letter on the floor. The man mentioned in it is one of those colleagues whom I distrust. I did my duty by him for all that. I gave him the information he wanted; I introduced him to a friend in a land of strangers. Have I no feeling, as you call it? My last experiments on a monkey horrified me. His cries of suffering, his gestures of entreaty, were like the cries and gestures of a child. I would have given the world to put him out of his misery. But I went on. In the glorious cause I went on. My hands turned cold—my heart ached—I thought of a child I sometimes play with—I suffered—I resisted—I went on. All for Knowledge! all for Knowledge!"

His brother's presence was forgotten. His dark face turned livid; his gigantic frame shuddered; his breath came and went in deep sobbing gasps—it was terrible to see him and hear him.

Lemuel slunk out of the room. The jackal had roused the lion; the mean spirit of mischief in him had not bargained for this. "I begin to believe in the devil," he said to himself when he got to the house door.

As he descended the steps, a carriage appeared in the lane. A footman opened the gate of the enclosure. The carriage approached the house, with a lady in it.

Lemuel ran back to his brother. "Here's a lady coming!" he said. "You're in a nice state to see her! Pull yourself together, Nathan—and, damn it, wash your hands!"

He took Benjulia's arm, and led him upstairs.

When Lemuel returned to the hall, Mrs. Gallilee was ascending the house-steps. He bowed profoundly, in homage to the well-preserved remains of a fine woman. "My brother will be with you directly, ma'am. Pray allow me to give you a chair."

His hat was in his hand. Mrs. Gallilee's knowledge of the world easily set him down at his true value. She got rid of him with her best grace. "Pray don't let me detain you, sir; I will wait with pleasure."

If she had been twenty years younger the hint might have been thrown away. As it was, Lemuel retired.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

An unusually long day's work at the office had fatigued good Mr. Mool. He pushed aside his papers, and let his weary eyes rest on a glass vase full of flowers on the table—a present from a grateful client. As a man, he enjoyed the lovely colours of the nosegay. As a botanist, he lamented the act which had cut the flowers from their parent stems, and doomed them to a premature death. "I should not have had the heart to do it myself," he thought; "but tastes differ."

The office boy came into the room, with a visiting card in his hand.

"I'm going home to dinner," said Mr. Mool. "The person must call to-morrow."

The boy laid the card on the table. The person was Mrs. Gallilee.

Mrs. Gallilee, at seven o'clock in the evening! Mrs. Gallilee, without a previous appointment by letter! Mr. Mool trembled under the apprehension of some serious family emergency, in imminent need of legal interference. He submitted as a matter of course. "Show the lady in."

Before a word had passed between them, the lawyer's mind was relieved. Mrs. Gallilee shone on him with her sweetest smiles; pressed his hand with her friendliest warmth; admired the nosegay with her readiest enthusiasm. "Quite perfect," she said—"especially the Pansy. The round flat edge, Mr. Mool; the upper petals perfectly uniform—there is a flower that defies criticism! I long to dissect it."

Mr. Mool politely resigned the Pansy to dissection (murderous mutilation, he would have called it, in the case of one of his own flowers), and waited to hear what his learned client might have to say to him.

"I am going to surprise you," Mrs. Gallilee announced. "No—to shock you. No—even that is not strong enough. Let me say, to horrify you."

Mr. Mool's anxieties returned, complicated by confusion. The behaviour of Mrs. Gallilee exhibited the most unaccountable contrast to her language. She showed no sign of those strong emotions to which she had alluded. "How am I to put it?" she went on, with a transparent affectation of embarrassment. "Shall I call it a disgrace to our family?" Mr. Mool started. Mrs. Gallilee entreated him to compose himself; she approached the inevitable disclosure by degrees. "I think," she said, "you have met Doctor Benjulia at my house?"

"I have had that honour, Mrs. Gallilee. Not a very sociable person—if I may venture to say so."

"Downright rude, Mr. Mool, on some occasions. But that doesn't matter now. I have just been visiting the doctor."

Was this visit connected with the "disgrace to the family?" Mr. Mool ventured to put a question.

"Doctor Benjulia is not related to you, ma'am—is he?"

"Not the least in the world. Please don't interrupt me again. I am, so to speak, laying a train of circumstances before you; and I might leave one of them out. When Doctor Benjulia was a young man—I am returning to my train of circumstances, Mr. Mool—he was at Rome, pursuing his professional studies. I have all this, mind, straight from the doctor himself. At Rome, he became acquainted with my late brother, after the period of his unfortunate marriage. Stop! I have failed to put it strongly enough again. I ought to have said, his disgraceful marriage."

"Really, Mrs. Gallilee—"

"Mr. Mool!"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am."

"Don't mention it. The next circumstance is ready in my mind. One of the doctor's fellow-students (described as being personally an irresistible man) was possessed of abilities which even attracted our unsociable Benjulia. They became friends. At the time of which I am now speaking, my brother's disgusting wife—oh, but I repeat it, Mr. Mool! I say again, his disgusting wife—was the mother of a female child."

"Your niece, Mrs. Gallilee."

"No!"

"Not Miss Carmina?"

"Miss Carmina is no more my niece than she is your niece. Carry your mind back to what I have just said. I mentioned a medical student who was an irresistible man. Miss Carmina's father was that man."

Mr. Mool's astonishment and indignation would have instantly expressed themselves, if he had not been a lawyer. As it was, his professional experience warned him of the imprudence of speaking too soon.

Mrs. Galilee's exultation forced its way outwards. Her eyes glittered; her voice rose. "The law, Mr. Mool! what does the law say?" she broke out. "Is my brother's Will no better than waste-paper? Is the money divided among his only near relations? Tell me! tell me!"

Mr. Mool suddenly plunged his face into his vase of flowers. Did he feel that the air of the office wanted purifying? or was he conscious that his face might betray him unless he hid it? Mrs. Galilee was at no loss to set her own clever interpretation on her lawyer's extraordinary proceeding.

"Take your time," she said with the most patronising kindness. "I know your sensitive nature; I know what I felt myself when this dreadful discovery burst upon me. If you remember, I said I should horrify you. Take your time, my dear sir—pray take your time."

To be encouraged in this way—as if he was the emotional client, and Mrs. Gallilee the impassive lawyer—was more than even Mr. Mool could endure. Shy men are, in the innermost depths of their nature, proud men: the lawyer had his professional pride. He came out of his flowery retreat, with a steady countenance. For the first time in his life, he was not afraid of Mrs. Galilee.

"Before we enter on the legal aspect of the case—" he began.

"The shocking case," Mrs. Gallilee interposed, in the interests of Virtue.

Under any other circumstances Mr. Mool would have accepted the correction. He actually took no notice of it now! "There is one point," he proceeded, "on which I must beg you to enlighten me."

"By all means! I am ready to go into any details, no matter how disgusting they may be."

Mr. Mool thought of certain "ladies" (objects of perfectly needless respect among men) who, being requested to leave the Court, at unmentionable Trials, persist in keeping their places. It was a relief to him to feel—if his next questions did nothing else—that they would disappoint Mrs. Galilee.

"Am I right in supposing that you believe what you have told me?" he resumed.

"Most assuredly!"

"Is Doctor Benjulia the only person who has spoken to you on the subject?"

"The only person."

"His information being derived from his friend—the fellow-student whom you mentioned just now?"

"In other words," Mrs. Gallilee answered viciously, "the father of the wretched girl who has been foisted on my care."

If Mr. Mool's courage had been in danger of failing him, he would have found it again now His regard for Carmina, his respect for the memory of her mother, had been wounded to the quick. Strong on his own legal ground, he proceeded as if he was examining a witness in a police court.

"I suppose the doctor had some reason for believing what his friend told him?"

"Ample reason! Vice and poverty generally go together—this man was poor. He showed Doctor Benjulia money received from his mistress—her husband's money, it is needless to say."

"Her motive might be innocent, Mrs. Gallilee. Had the man any letters of hers to show?"

"Letters? From a woman in her position? It's notorious, Mr. Mool, that Italian models don't know how to read or write."

"May I ask if there are any further proofs?"

"You have had proofs enough."

"With all possible respect, ma'am, I deny that."

Mrs. Gallilee had not been asked to enter into disgusting details. Mrs. Gallilee had been contradicted by her obedient humble servant of other days. She thought it high time to bring the examination to an end.

"If you are determined to believe in the woman's innocence," she said, "without knowing any of the circumstances—"

Mr. Mool went on from bad to worse: he interrupted her now.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Gallilee, I think you have forgotten that one of my autumn holidays, many years since, was spent in Italy. I was in Rome, like Doctor Benjulia, after your brother's marriage. His wife was, to my certain knowledge, received in society. Her reputation was unblemished; and her husband was devoted to her."

"In plain English," said Mrs. Gallilee, "my brother was a poor weak creature—and his wife, when you knew her, had not been found out."

"That is just the difficulty I feel," Mr. Mool rejoined. "How is it that she is only found out now? Years have passed since she died. More years have passed since this attack on her character reached Doctor Benjulia's knowledge. He is an old friend of yours. Why has he only told you of it to-day? I hope I don't offend you by asking these questions?"

"Oh, dear, no! your questions are so easily answered. I never encouraged the doctor to speak of my brother and his wife. The subject was too distasteful to me—and I don't doubt that Doctor Benjulia felt about it as I did."

"Until to-day," the lawyer remarked; "Doctor Benjulia appears to have been quite ready to mention the subject to-day."

"Under special circumstances, Mr. Mool. Perhaps, you will not allow that special circumstances make any difference?"

On the contrary, Mr. Mool made every allowance. At the same time, he waited to hear what the circumstances might be.

But Mrs. Galilee had her reasons for keeping silence. It was impossible to mention Benjulia's reception of her without inflicting a wound on her self-esteem. To begin with, he had kept the door of the room open, and had remained standing. "Have you got Ovid's letters? Leave them here; I'm not fit to look at them now." Those were his first words. There was nothing in the letters which a friend might not read: she accordingly consented to leave them. The doctor had expressed his sense of obligation by bidding her get into her carriage again, and go. "I have been put in a passion; I have made a fool of myself; I haven't a nerve in my body that isn't quivering with rage. Go! go! go!" There was his explanation. Impenetrably obstinate, Mrs. Galilee faced him—standing between the doctor and the door—without shrinking. She had not driven all the way to Benjulia's house to be sent back again without gaining her object: she had her questions to put to him, and she persisted in pressing them as only a woman can. He was left—with the education of a gentleman against him—between the two vulgar alternatives of turning her out by main force, or of yielding, and getting rid of her decently in that way. At any other time, he would have flatly refused to lower himself to the level of a scandal-mongering woman, by entering on the subject. In his present mood, if pacifying Mrs. Galilee, and ridding himself of Mrs. Gallilee, meant one and the same thing, he was ready, recklessly ready, to let her have her own way. She heard the infamous story, which she had repeated to her lawyer; and she had Lemuel Benjulia's visit, and Mr. Morphew's contemplated attack on Vivisection, to thank for getting her information.

Mr. Mool waited, and waited in vain. He reminded his client of what she had just said.

"You mentioned certain circumstances. May I know what they are?" he asked.

Mrs. Gallilee rose, before she replied.

"Your time is valuable, and my time is valuable," she said. "We shall not convince each other by prolonging our conversation. I came here, Mr. Mool, to ask you a question about the law. Permit me to remind you that I have not had my answer yet. My own impression is that the girl now in my house, not being my brother's child, has no claim on my brother's property? Tell me in two words, if you please—am I right or wrong?"

"I can do it in one word, Mrs. Gallilee. Wrong."

"What!"

Mr. Mool entered on the necessary explanation, triumphing in the reply that he had just made. "It's the smartest thing," he thought, "I ever said in my life."

"While husbands and wives live together," he continued, "the Law holds that all children, born in wedlock, are the husband's children. Even if Miss Carmina's mother had not been as good and innocent a woman as ever drew the breath of life—"

"That will do, Mr. Mool. You really mean to say that this girl's interest in my brother's Will—"

"Remains quite unaffected, ma'am, by all that you have told me."

"And I am still obliged to keep her under my care?"

"Or," Mr. Mool answered, "to resign the office of guardian, in favour of Lady Northlake—appointed to act, in your place."

"I won't trouble you any further, sir. Good-evening!"

She turned to leave the office. Mr. Mool actually tried to stop her.

"One word more, Mrs. Galilee."

"No; we have said enough already."

Mr. Mool's audacity arrived at its climax. He put his hand on the lock of the office door, and held it shut.

"The young lady, Mrs. Gallilee! I am sure you will never breathe a word of this to the pretty gentle, young lady? Even if it was true; and, as God is my witness, I am sure it's false—"

"Good-evening, Mr. Mool!"

He opened the door, and let her go; her looks and tones told him that remonstrance was worse than useless. From year's end to year's end, this modest and amiable man had never been heard to swear. He swore now. "Damn Doctor Benjulia!" he burst out, in the solitude of his office. His dinner was waiting for him at home. Instead of putting on his hat, he went back to his writing-table. His thoughts projected themselves into the future—and discovered possibilities from which they recoiled. He took up his pen, and began a letter. "To John Gallilee, Esquire: Dear Sir,—Circumstances have occurred, which I am not at liberty to mention, but which make it necessary for me, in justice to my own views and feelings, to withdraw from the position of legal adviser to yourself and family." He paused and considered with himself. "No," he decided; "I may be of some use to that poor child, while I am the family lawyer." He tore up his unfinished letter.

When Mr. Mool got home that night, it was noticed that he had a poor appetite for his dinner. On the other hand, he drank more wine than usual.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

"I don't know what is the matter with me. Sometimes I think I am going to be really ill."

It was the day after Mrs. Gallilee's interview with her lawyer—and this was Carmina's answer, when the governess entered her room, after the lessons of the morning, and asked if she felt better.

"Are you still taking medicine?" Miss Minerva inquired.

"Yes. Mr. Null says it's a tonic, and it's sure to do me good. It doesn't seem to have begun yet. I feel so dreadfully weak, Frances. The least thing makes me cry; and I put off doing what I ought to do, and want to do, without knowing why. You remember what I told you about Teresa? She may be with us in a few days more, for all I know to the contrary. I must find a nice lodging for her, poor dear—and here I am, thinking about it instead of doing it."

"Let me do it," Miss Minerva suggested.

Carmina's sad face brightened. "That's kind indeed!" she said.

"Nonsense! I shall take the children out, after dinner to-day. Looking over lodgings will be an amusement to me and to them."

"Where is Zo? Why haven't you brought her with you?"

"She is having her music lesson—and I must go back to keep her in order. About the lodging? A sitting-room and bedroom will be enough, I suppose? In this neighbourhood, I am afraid the terms will be rather high."

"Oh, never mind that! Let us have clean airy rooms—and a kind landlady. Teresa mustn't know it, if the terms are high."

"Will she allow you to pay her expenses?"

"Ah, you put it delicately! My aunt seemed to doubt if Teresa had any money of her own. I forgot, at the time, that my father had left her a little income. She told me so herself, and wondered, poor dear, how she was to spend it all. She mustn't be allowed to spend it all. We will tell her that the terms are half what they may really be—and I will pay the other half. Isn't it cruel of my aunt not to let my old nurse live in the same house with me?"

At that moment, a message arrived from one of the persons of whom she was speaking. Mrs. Gallilee wished to see Miss Carmina immediately.

"My dear," said Miss Minerva, when the servant had withdrawn, "why do you tremble so?"

"There's something in me, Frances, that shudders at my aunt, ever since—"

She stopped.

Miss Minerva understood that sudden pause—the undesigned allusion to Carmina's guiltless knowledge of her feeling towards Ovid. By unexpressed consent, on either side, they still preserved their former relations as if Mrs. Gallilee had not spoken. Miss Minerva looked at Carmina sadly and kindly. "Good-bye for the present!" she said—and went upstairs again to the schoolroom.

In the hall, Carmina found the servant waiting for her. He opened the library door. The learned lady was at her studies.

"I have been speaking to Mr. Null about you," said Mrs. Gallilee.

On the previous evening, Carmina had kept her room. She had breakfasted in bed—and she now saw her aunt for the first time, since Mrs. Gallilee had left the house on her visit to Benjulia. The girl was instantly conscious of a change—to be felt rather than to be realised—a subtle change in her aunt's way of looking at her and speaking to her. Her heart beat fast. She took the nearest chair in silence.

"The doctor," Mrs. Gallilee proceeded, "thinks it of importance to your health to be as much as possible in the air. He wishes you to drive out every day, while the fine weather lasts. I have ordered the open carriage to be ready, after luncheon. Other engagements will prevent me from accompanying you. You will be under the care of my maid, and you will be out for two hours. Mr. Null hopes you will gain strength. Is there anything you want?"

"Nothing—thank you."

"Perhaps you wish for a new dress?"

"Oh, no!"

"You have no complaint to make of the servants?"

"The servants are always kind to me."

"I needn't detain you any longer—I have a person coming to speak to me."

Carmina had entered the room in doubt and fear. She left it with strangely-mingled feelings of perplexity and relief. Her sense of a mysterious change in her aunt had strengthened with every word that Mrs. Gallilee had said to her. She had heard of reformatory institutions, and of discreet persons called matrons who managed them. In her imaginary picture of such places, Mrs. Gallilee's tone and manner realised, in the strangest way, her idea of a matron speaking to a penitent.

As she crossed the hall, her thoughts took a new direction. Some indefinable distrust of the coming time got possession of her. An ugly model of the Colosseum, in cork, stood on the hall table. She looked at it absently. "I hope Teresa will come soon," she thought—and turned away to the stairs.

She ascended slowly; her head drooping, her mind still preoccupied. Arrived at the first landing, a sound of footsteps disturbed her. She looked up—and found herself face to face with Mr. Le Frank, leaving the schoolroom after his music lesson. At that sudden discovery, a cry of alarm escaped her—the common little scream of a startled woman. Mr. Le Frank made an elaborately formal bow: he apologised with sternly stupid emphasis. "I beg your pardon."

Moved by a natural impulse, penitently conscious of those few foolish words of hers which he had so unfortunately overheard, the poor girl made an effort to conciliate him. "I have very few friends, Mr. Le Frank," she said timidly. "May I still consider you as one of them? Will you forgive and forget? Will you shake hands?"

Mr. Le Frank made another magnificent bow. He was proud of his voice. In his most resonant and mellifluous tones, he said, "You do me honour—" and took the offered hand, and lifted it grandly, and touched it with his lips.

She held by the baluster with her free hand, and controlled the sickening sensation which that momentary contact with him produced. He might have detected the outward signs of the struggle, but for an interruption which preserved her from discovery. Mrs. Gallilee was standing at the open library door. Mrs. Gallilee said, "I am waiting for you, Mr. Le Frank."

Carmina hurried up the stairs, pursued already by a sense of her own imprudence. In her first confusion and dismay, but one clear idea presented itself. "Oh!" she said, "have I made another mistake?"

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gallilee had received her music-master with the nearest approach to an indulgent welcome, of which a hardened nature is capable.

"Take the easy chair, Mr. Le Frank. You are not afraid of the open window?"

"Oh, dear no! I like it." He rapidly unrolled some leaves of music which he had brought downstairs. "With regard to the song that I had the honour of mentioning—"

Mrs. Gallilee pointed to the table. "Put the song there for the present. I have a word to say first. How came you to frighten my niece? I heard something like a scream, and naturally looked out. She was making an apology; she asked you to forgive and forget. What does all this mean?"

Mr. Le Frank exhausted his ingenuity in efforts of polite evasion without the slightest success. From first to last (if the expression may be permitted) Mrs. Gallilee had him under her thumb. He was not released, until he had literally reported Carmina's opinion of him as a man and a musician, and had exactly described the circumstances under which he had heard it. Mrs. Gallilee listened with an interest, which (under less embarrassing circumstances) would have even satisfied Mrs. Le Frank's vanity.

She was not for a moment deceived by the clumsy affectation of good humour with which he told his story. Her penetration discovered the vindictive feeling towards Carmina, which offered him, in case of necessity, as an instrument ready made to her hand. By fine degrees, she presented herself in the new character of a sympathising friend.

"I know now, Mr. Le Frank, why you declined to be my niece's music-master. Allow me to apologise for having ignorantly placed you in a false position. I appreciate the delicacy of your conduct—I understand, and admire you."

Mr. Le Frank's florid cheeks turned redder still. His cold blood began to simmer, heated by an all-pervading glow of flattered self-esteem.

"My niece's motives for concealment are plain enough," Mrs. Gallilee proceeded. "Let me hope that she was ashamed to confess the total want of taste, delicacy, and good manners which has so justly offended you. Miss Minerva, however, has no excuse for keeping me in the dark. Her conduct, in this matter, offers, I regret to say, one more instance of her habitual neglect of the duties which attach to her position in my house. There seems to be some private understanding between my governess and my niece, of which I highly disapprove. However, the subject is too distasteful to dwell on. You were speaking of your song—the last effort of your genius, I think?"

His "genius"! The inner glow in Mr. Le Frank grew warmer and warmer. "I asked for the honour of an interview," he explained, "to make a request." He took up his leaves of music. "This is my last, and, I hope, my best effort at composition. May I dedicate it—?"

"To me!" Mrs. Gallilee exclaimed with a burst of enthusiasm.

Mr. Le Frank felt the compliment. He bowed gratefully.

"Need I say how gladly I accept the honour?" With this gracious answer Mrs. Gallilee rose.

Was the change of position a hint, suggesting that Mr. Le Frank might leave her to her studies, now that his object was gained? Or was it an act of homage offered by Science to Art? Mr. Le Frank was incapable of placing an unfavourable interpretation on any position which a woman—and such a woman—could assume in his presence. He felt the compliment again. "The first copy published shall be sent to you," he said—and snatched up his hat, eager to set the printers at work.

"And five-and-twenty copies more, for which I subscribe," cried his munificent patroness, cordially shaking hands with him.

Mr. Le Frank attempted to express his sense of obligation. Generous Mrs. Gallilee refused to hear him. He took his leave; he got as far as the hall; and then he was called back—softly, confidentially called back to the library.

"A thought has just struck me," said Mrs. Gallilee. "Please shut the door for a moment. About that meeting between you and my niece? Perhaps, I am taking a morbid view?"

She paused. Mr. Le Frank waited with breathless interest.

"Or is there something out of the common way, in that apology of hers?" Mrs. Gallilee proceeded. "Have you any idea what the motive might be?"

Mr. Le Frank's ready suspicion was instantly aroused. "Not the least idea," he answered. "Can you tell me?"

"I am as completely puzzled as you are," Mrs. Gallilee rejoined.

Mr. Le Frank considered. His suspicions made an imaginative effort, assisted by his vanity. "After my refusal to teach her," he suggested, "that proposal to shake hands may have a meaning—" There, his invention failed him. He stopped, and shook his head ominously.

Mrs. Gallilee's object being attained, she made no attempt to help him. "Perhaps, time will show," she answered discreetly. "Good-bye again—with best wishes for the success of the song."



CHAPTER XXXV.

The solitude of her own room was no welcome refuge to Carmina, in her present state of mind. She went on to the schoolroom.

Miss Minerva was alone. The two girls, in obedience to domestic regulations, were making their midday toilet before dinner. Carmina described her interview with Mrs. Gallilee, and her meeting with Mr. Le Frank. "Don't scold me," she said; "I make no excuse for my folly."

"If Mr. Le Frank had left the house, after you spoke to him," Miss Minerva answered, "I should not have felt the anxiety which troubles me now. I don't like his going to Mrs. Gallilee afterwards—especially when you tell me of that change in her manner towards you. Yours is a vivid imagination, Carmina. Are you sure that it has not been playing you any tricks?"

"Perfectly sure."

Miss Minerva was not quite satisfied. "Will you help me to feel as certain about it as you do?" she asked. "Mrs. Gallilee generally looks in for a few minutes, while the children are at dinner. Stay here, and say something to her in my presence. I want to judge for myself."

The girls came in. Maria's perfect toilet, reflected Maria's perfect character. She performed the duties of politeness with her usual happy choice of words. "Dear Carmina, it is indeed a pleasure to see you again in our schoolroom. We are naturally anxious about your health. This lovely weather is no doubt in your favour; and papa thinks Mr. Null a remarkably clever man." Zo stood by frowning, while these smooth conventionalities trickled over her sister's lips. Carmina asked what was the matter. Zo looked gloomily at the dog on the rug. "I wish I was Tinker," she said. Maria smiled sweetly. "Dear Zoe, what a very strange wish! What would you do, if you were Tinker?" The dog, hearing his name, rose and shook himself. Zo pointed to him, with an appearance of the deepest interest. "He hasn't got to brush his hair, before he goes out for a walk; his nails don't took black when they're dirty. And, I say!" (she whispered the next words in Carmina's ear) "he hasn't got a governess."

The dinner made its appearance; and Mrs. Gallilee followed the dinner. Maria said grace. Zo, always ravenous at meals, forgot to say Amen. Carmina, standing behind her chair, prompted her. Zo said "Amen; oh, bother!" the first word at the top of her voice, and the last two in a whisper. Mrs. Gallilee looked at Carmina as she might have looked at an obtrusive person who had stepped in from the street. "You had better dress before luncheon," she suggested, "or you will keep the carriage waiting." Hearing this, Zo laid down her knife and fork, and looked over her shoulder. "Ask if I may go with you," she said. Carmina made the request. "No," Mrs. Gallilee answered, "the children must walk. My maid will accompany you." Carmina glanced at Miss Minerva on leaving the room. The governess replied by a look. She too had seen the change in Mrs. Gallilee's manner, and was at a loss to understand it.

Mrs. Gallilee's maid Marceline belonged to a quick-tempered race: she was a Jersey woman. It is not easy to say which of the two felt most oppressed by their enforced companionship in the carriage.

The maid was perhaps the most to be pitied. Secretly drawn towards Carmina like the other servants in the house, she was forced by her mistress's private instruction, to play the part of a spy. "If the young lady changes the route which the coachman has my orders to take, or if she communicates with any person while your are out, you are to report it to me." Mrs. Gallilee had not forgotten the discovery of the travelling bag; and Mr. Mool's exposition of the law had informed her, that the superintendence of Carmina was as much a matter of serious pecuniary interest as ever.

But recent events had, in one respect at least, improved the prospect.

If Ovid (as his mother actually ventured to hope!) broke off his engagement, when he heard the scandalous story of Carmina's birth, there was surely a chance that she, like other girls of her sensitive temperament, might feel the calamity that had fallen on her so acutely as to condemn herself to a single life. Misled, partly by the hope of relief from her own vile anxieties; partly by the heartless incapability of appreciating generous feeling in others, developed by the pursuits of her later life, Mrs. Gallilee seriously contemplated her son's future decision as a matter of reasonable doubt.

In the meanwhile, this detestable child of adultery—this living obstacle in the way of the magnificent prospects which otherwise awaited Maria and Zoe, to say nothing of their mother—must remain in the house, submitted to her guardian's authority, watched by her guardian's vigilance. The hateful creature was still entitled to medical attendance when she was ill, and must still be supplied with every remedy that the doctor's ingenuity could suggest. A liberal allowance was paid for the care of her; and the trustees were bound to interfere if it was not fairly earned.

Looking after the carriage as it drove away—Marceline on the front seat presenting the picture of discomfort; and Carmina opposite to her, unendurably pretty and interesting, with the last new poem on her lap—Mrs. Gallilee's reflections took their own bitter course. "Accidents happen to other carriages, with other girls in them. Not to my carriage, with that girl in it! Nothing will frighten my horses to-day; and, fat as he is, my coachman will not have a fit on the box!"

It was only too true. At the appointed hour the carriage appeared again—and (to complete the disappointment) Marceline had no report to make.

Miss Minerva had not forgotten her promise. When she returned from her walk with the children, the rooms had been taken. Teresa's London lodging was within five minutes' walk of the house.

That evening, Carmina sent a telegram to Rome, on the chance that the nurse might not yet have begun her journey. The message (deferring other explanations until they met) merely informed her that her rooms were ready, adding the address and the landlady's name. Guessing in the dark, Carmina and the governess had ignorantly attributed the sinister alteration in Mrs. Gallilee's manner to the prospect of Teresa's unwelcome return. "While you have the means in your power," Miss Minerva advised, "it may be as well to let your old friend know that there is a home for her when she reaches London."



CHAPTER XXXVI.

The weather, to Carmina's infinite relief, changed for the worse the next day. Incessant rain made it impossible to send her out in the carriage again.

But it was an eventful day, nevertheless. On that rainy afternoon, Mr. Gallilee asserted himself as a free agent, in the terrible presence of his wife!

"It's an uncommonly dull day, my dear," he began. This passed without notice, which was a great encouragement to go on. "If you will allows me to say so, Carmina wants a little amusement." Mrs. Gallilee looked up from her book. Fearing that he might stop altogether if he took his time as usual, Mr. Gallilee proceeded in a hurry. "There's an afternoon performance of conjuring tricks; and, do you know, I really think I might take Carmina to see it. We shall be delighted if you will accompany us, my dear; and they do say—perhaps you have heard of it yourself?—that there's a good deal of science in this exhibition." His eyes rolled in uneasy expectation, as he waited to hear what his wife might decide. She waved her hand contemptuously in the direction of the door. Mr. Gallilee retired with the alacrity of a young man. "Now we shall enjoy ourselves!" he thought as he went up to Carmina's room.

They were just leaving the house, when the music-master arrived at the door to give his lesson.

Mr. Gallilee immediately put his head out of the cab window. "We are going to see the conjuring!" he shouted cheerfully. "Carmina! don't you see Mr. Le Frank? He is bowing to you. Do you like conjuring, Mr. Le Frank? Don't tell the children where we are going! They would be disappointed, poor things—but they must have their lessons, mustn't they? Good-bye! I say! stop a minute. If you ever want your umbrella mended, I know a man who will do it cheap and well. Nasty day, isn't it? Go on! go on!"

The general opinion which ranks vanity among the lighter failings of humanity, commits a serious mistake. Vanity wants nothing but the motive power to develop into absolute wickedness. Vanity can be savagely suspicious and diabolically cruel. What are the two typical names which stand revealed in history as the names of the two vainest men that ever lived? Nero and Robespierre.

In his obscure sphere, and within his restricted means, the vanity of Mrs. Gallilee's music-master had developed its inherent qualities, under her cunning and guarded instigation. Once set in action, his suspicion of Carmina passed beyond all limits. There could be no reason but a bad reason for that barefaced attempt to entrap him into a reconciliation. Every evil motive which it was possible to attribute to a girl of her age, no matter how monstrously improbable it might be, occurred to him when he recalled her words, her look, and her manner at their meeting on the stairs. His paltry little mind, at other times preoccupied in contemplating himself and his abilities, was now so completely absorbed in imagining every variety of conspiracy against his social and professional position, that he was not even capable of giving his customary lesson to two children. Before the appointed hour had expired, Miss Minerva remarked that his mind did not appear to be at ease, and suggested that he had better renew the lesson on the next day. After a futile attempt to assume an appearance of tranquillity—he thanked her and took his leave.

On his way downstairs, he found the door of Carmina's room left half open.

She was absent with Mr. Gallilee. Miss Minerva remained upstairs with the children. Mrs. Gallilee was engaged in scientific research. At that hour of the afternoon, there were no duties which called the servants to the upper part of the house. He listened—he hesitated—he went into the room.

It was possible that she might keep a journal: it was certain that she wrote and received letters. If he could only find her desk unlocked and her drawers open, the inmost secrets of her life would be at his mercy.

He tried her desk; he tried the cupboard under the bookcase. They were both locked. The cabinet between the windows and the drawer of the table were left unguarded. No discovery rewarded the careful search that he pursued in these two repositories. He opened the books that she had left on the table, and shook them. No forgotten letter, no private memorandum (used as marks) dropped out. He looked all round him; he peeped into the bedroom; he listened, to make sure that nobody was outside; he entered the bedroom, and examined the toilet-table, and opened the doors of the wardrobe—and still the search was fruitless, persevere as he might.

Returning to the sitting-room, he shook his fist at the writing-desk. "You wouldn't be locked," he thought, "unless you had some shameful secrets to keep! I shall have other opportunities; and she may not always remember to turn the key." He stole quietly down the stairs, and met no one on his way out.

The bad weather continued on the next day. The object of Mr. Le Frank's suspicion remained in the house—and the second opportunity failed to offer itself as yet.

The visit to the exhibition of conjuring had done Carmina harm instead of good. Her head ached, in the close atmosphere—she was too fatigued to be able to stay in the room until the performance came to an end. Poor Mr. Gallilee retired in disgrace to the shelter of his club. At dinner, even his perfect temper failed him for the moment. He found fault with the champagne—and then apologised to the waiter. "I'm sorry I was a little hard on you just now. The fact is, I'm out of sorts—you have felt in that way yourself, haven't you? The wine's first-rate; and, really the weather is so discouraging, I think I'll try another pint."

But Carmina's buoyant heart defied the languor of illness and the gloomy day. The post had brought her a letter from Ovid—enclosing a photograph, taken at Montreal, which presented him in his travelling costume.

He wrote in a tone of cheerfulness, which revived Carmina's sinking courage, and renewed for a time at least the happiness of other days. The air of the plains of Canada he declared to be literally intoxicating. Every hour seemed to be giving him back the vital energy that he had lost in his London life. He slept on the ground, in the open air, more soundly than he had ever slept in a bed. But one anxiety troubled his mind. In the roving life which he now enjoyed, it was impossible that his letters could follow him—and yet, every day that passed made him more unreasonably eager to hear that Carmina was not weary of waiting for him, and that all was well at home.

"And how have these vain aspirations of mine ended?"—the letter went on. "They have ended, my darling, in a journey for one of my guides—an Indian, whose fidelity I have put to the proof, and whose zeal I have stimulated by a promise of reward.

"The Indian takes these lines to be posted at Quebec. He is also provided with an order, authorising my bankers to trust him with the letters that are waiting for me. I begin a canoe voyage to-morrow; and, after due consultation with the crew, we have arranged a date and a place at which my messenger will find me on his return. Shall I confess my own amiable weakness? or do you know me well enough already to suspect the truth? My love, I am sorely tempted to be false to my plans and arrangements to go back with the Indian to Quebec—and to take a berth in the first steamer that returns to England.

"Don't suppose that I am troubled by any misgivings about what is going on in my absence! It is one of the good signs of my returning health that I take the brightest view of our present lives, and of our lives to come. I feel tempted to go back, for the same reason that makes me anxious for letters. I want to hear from you, because I love you—I want to return at once, because I love you. There is longing, unutterable longing, in my heart. No doubts, my sweet one, and no fears!

"But I was a doctor, before I became a lover. My medical knowledge tells me that this is an opportunity of thoroughly fortifying my constitution, and (with God's blessing) of securing to myself reserves of health and strength which will take us together happily on the way to old age. Dear love, you must be my wife—not my nurse! There is the thought that gives me self-denial enough to let the Indian go away by himself."

Carmina answered this letter as soon as she had read it.

Before the mail could carry her reply to its destination, she well knew that the Indian messenger would be on the way back to his master. But Ovid had made her so happy that she felt the impulse to write to him at once, as she might have felt the impulse to answer him at once if he had been present and speaking to her. When the pages were filled, and the letter had been closed and addressed, the effort produced its depressing effect on her spirits.

There now appeared to her a certain wisdom in the loving rapidity of her reply.

Even in the fullness of her joy, she was conscious of an underlying distrust of herself. Although he refused to admit it, Mr. Null had betrayed a want of faith in the remedy from which he had anticipated such speedy results, by writing another prescription. He had also added a glass to the daily allowance of wine, which he had thought sufficient thus far. Without despairing of herself, Carmina felt that she had done wisely in writing her answer, while she was still well enough to rival the cheerful tone of Ovid's letter.

She laid down to rest on the sofa, with the photograph in her hand. No sense of loneliness oppressed her now; the portrait was the best of all companions. Outside, the heavy rain pattered; in the room, the busy clock ticked. She listened lazily, and looked at her lover, and kissed the faithful image of him—peacefully happy.

The opening of the door was the first little event that disturbed her. Zo peeped in. Her face was red, her hair was tousled, her fingers presented inky signs of a recent writing lesson.

"I'm in a rage," she announced; "and so is the Other One."

Carmina called her to the sofa, and tried to find out who this second angry person might be. "Oh, you know!" Zo answered doggedly. "She rapped my knuckles. I call her a Beast."

"Hush! you mustn't talk in that way."

"She'll be here directly," Zo proceeded. "You look out! She'd rap your knuckles—only you're too big. If it wasn't raining, I'd run away." Carmina assumed an air of severity, and entered a serious protest adapted to her young friend's intelligence. She might as well have spoken in a foreign language. Zo had another reason to give, besides the rap on the knuckles, for running away.

"I say!" she resumed—"you know the boy?"

"What boy, dear?"

"He comes round sometimes. He's got a hurdy-gurdy. He's got a monkey. He grins. He says, Aha—gimmee—haypenny. I mean to go to that boy!"

As a confession of Zo's first love, this was irresistible. Carmina burst out laughing. Zo indignantly claimed a hearing. "I haven't done yet!" she burst out. "The boy dances. Like this." She cocked her head, and slapped her thigh, and imitated the boy. "And sometimes he sings!" she cried with another outburst of admiration.

"Yah-yah-yah-bellah-vitah-yah! That's Italian, Carmina." The door opened again while the performer was in full vigour—and Miss Minerva appeared.

When she entered the room, Carmina at once saw that Zo had correctly observed her governess. Miss Minerva's heavy eyebrows lowered; her lips were pale; her head was held angrily erect, "Carmina!" she said sharply, "you shouldn't encourage that child." She turned round, in search of the truant pupil. Incurably stupid at her lessons, Zo's mind had its gleams of intelligence, in a state of liberty. One of those gleams had shone propitiously, and had lighted her out of the room.

Miss Minerva took a chair: she dropped into it like a person worn out with fatigue. Carmina spoke to her gently. Words of sympathy were thrown away on that self-tormenting nature.

"No; I'm not ill," she said. "A night without sleep; a perverse child to teach in the morning; and a detestable temper at all times—that's what is the matter with me." She looked at Carmina. "You seem to be wonderfully better to-day. Has stupid Mr. Null really done you some good at last?" She noticed the open writing-desk, and discovered the letter. "Or is it good news?"

"I have heard from Ovid," Carmina answered. The photograph was still in her hand; but her inbred delicacy of feeling kept the portrait hidden.

The governess's sallow complexion turned little by little to a dull greyish white. Her hands, loosely clasped in her lap, tightened when she heard Ovid's name. That slight movement over, she stirred no more. After waiting a little, Carmina ventured to speak. "Frances," she said, "you have not shaken hands with me yet." Miss Minerva slowly looked up, keeping her hands still clasped on her lap.

"When is he coming back?" she asked. It was said quietly.

Carmina quietly replied, "Not yet—I am sorry to say."

"I am sorry too."

"It's good of you, Frances, to say that."

"No: it's not good of me. I'm thinking of myself—not of you." She suddenly lowered her tone. "I wish you were married to him," she said.

There was a pause. Miss Minerva was the first to speak again.

"Do you understand me?" she asked.

"Perhaps you will help me to understand," Carmina answered.

"If you were married to him, even my restless spirit might be at peace. The struggle would be over."

She left her chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room. The passionate emotion which she had resolutely suppressed began to get beyond her control.

"I was thinking about you last night," she abruptly resumed. "You are a gentle little creature—but I have seen you show some spirit, when your aunt's cold-blooded insolence roused you. Do you know what I would do, if I were in your place? I wouldn't wait tamely till he came back to me—I would go to him. Carmina! Carmina! leave this horrible house!" She stopped, close by the sofa. "Let me look at you. Ha! I believe you have thought of it yourself?"

"I have thought of it."

"What did I say? You poor little prisoner, you have the right spirit in you! I wish I could give you some of my strength." The half-mocking tone in which she spoke, suddenly failed her. Her piercing eyes grew dim; the hard lines in her face softened. She dropped on her knees, and wound her lithe arms round Carmina, and kissed her. "You sweet child!" she said—and burst passionately into tears.

Even then, the woman's fiercely self-dependent nature asserted itself. She pushed Carmina back on the sofa. "Don't look at me! don't speak to me!" she gasped. "Leave me to get over it."

She stifled the sobs that broke from her. Still on her knees, she looked up, shuddering. A ghastly smile distorted her lips. "Ah, what fools we are!" she said. "Where is that lavender water, my dear—your favourite remedy for a burning head?" She found the bottle before Carmina could help her, and soaked her handkerchief in the lavender water, and tied it round her head. "Yes," she went on, as if they had been gossiping on the most commonplace subjects, "I think you're right: this is the best of all perfumes." She looked at the clock. "The children's dinner will be ready in ten minutes. I must, and will, say what I have to say to you. It may be the last poor return I can make, Carmina, for all your kindness."

She returned to her chair.

"I can't help it if I frighten you," she resumed; "I must tell you plainly that I don't like the prospect. In the first place, the sooner we two are parted—oh, only for a while!—the better for you. After what I went through, last night—no, I am not going to enter into any particulars; I am only going to repeat, what I have said already—don't trust me. I mean it, Carmina! Your generous nature shall not mislead you, if I can help it. When you are a happy married woman—when he is farther removed from me than he is even now—remember your ugly, ill-tempered friend, and let me come to you. Enough of this! I have other misgivings that are waiting to be confessed. You know that old nurse of yours intimately—while I only speak from a day or two's experience of her. To my judgment, she is a woman whose fondness for you might be turned into a tigerish fondness, on very small provocation. You write to her constantly. Does she know what you have suffered? Have you told her the truth?"

"Yes."

"Without reserve?"

"Entirely without reserve."

"When that old woman comes to London, Carmina—and sees you, and sees Mrs. Gallilee—don't you think the consequences may be serious? and your position between them something (if you were ten times stronger than you are) that no fortitude can endure?"

Carmina started up on the sofa. She was not able to speak. Miss Minerva gave her time to recover herself—after another look at the clock.

"I am not alarming you for nothing," she proceeded; "I have something hopeful to propose. Your friend Teresa has energies—wild energies. Make a good use of them. She will do anything you ask or her. Take her with you to Canada!"

"Oh, Frances!"

Miss Minerva pointed to the letter on the desk. "Does he tell you when he will be back?"

"No. He feels the importance of completely restoring his health—he is going farther and farther away—he has sent to Quebec for his letters."

"Then there is no fear of your crossing each other on the voyage. Go to Quebec, and wait for him there."

"I should frighten him."

"Not you!"

"What can I say to him?"

"What you must say, if you are weak enough to wait for him here. Do you think his mother will consider his feelings, when he comes back to marry you? I tell you again I am not talking at random. I have thought it all out: I know how you can make your escape, and defy pursuit. You have plenty of money; you have Teresa to take care of you. Go! For your own sake, for his sake, go!"

The clock struck the hour. She rose and removed the handkerchief from her head. "Hush!" she said, "Do I hear the rustling of a dress on the landing below?" She snatched up a bottle of Mr. Null's medicine—as a reason for being in the room. The sound of the rustling dress came nearer and nearer. Mrs. Gallilee (on her way to the schoolroom dinner) opened the door. She instantly understood the purpose which the bottle was intended to answer.

"It is my business to give Carmina her medicine," she said. "Your business is at the schoolroom table."

She took possession of the bottle, and advanced to Carmina. There were two looking-glasses in the room. One, in the usual position, over the fireplace; the other opposite, on the wall behind the sofa. Turning back, before she left the room, Miss Minerva saw Mrs. Gallilee's face, when she and Carmina looked at each other, reflected in the glass.

The girls were waiting for their dinner. Maria received the unpunctual governess with her ready smile, and her appropriate speech. "Dear Miss Minerva, we were really almost getting alarmed about you. Pardon me for noticing it, you look—" She caught the eye of the governess, and stopped confusedly.

"Well?" said Miss Minerva. "How do I look?"

Maria still hesitated. Zo spoke out as usual. "You look as if somebody had frightened you."



CHAPTER XXXVII.

After two days of rain, the weather cleared again.

It was a calm, sunshiny Sunday morning. The flat country round Benjulia's house wore its brightest aspect on that clear autumn day. Even the doctor's gloomy domestic establishment reflected in some degree the change for the better. When he rose that morning, Benjulia presented himself to his household in a character which they were little accustomed to see—the character of a good-humoured master. He astonished his silent servant by attempting to whistle a tune. "If you ever looked cheerful in your life," he said to the man, "look cheerful now. I'm going to take a holiday!"

After working incessantly—never leaving his laboratory; eating at his dreadful table; snatching an hour's rest occasionally on the floor—he had completed a series of experiments, with results on which he could absolutely rely. He had advanced by one step nearer towards solving that occult problem in brain disease, which had thus far baffled the investigations of medical men throughout the civilised world. If his present rate of progress continued, the lapse of another month might add his name to the names that remain immortal among physicians, in the Annals of Discovery.

So completely had his labours absorbed his mind that he only remembered the letters which Mrs. Gallilee had left with him, when he finished his breakfast on Sunday morning. Upon examination, there appeared no allusion in Ovid's correspondence to the mysterious case of illness which he had attended at Montreal. The one method now left, by which Benjulia could relieve the doubt that still troubled him, was to communicate directly with his friend in Canada. He decided to celebrate his holiday by taking a walk; his destination being the central telegraph office in London.

But, before he left the house, his domestic duties claimed attention. He issued his orders to the cook.

At three o'clock he would return to dinner. That day was to witness the celebration of his first regular meat for forty-eight hours past; and he expected the strictest punctuality. The cook—lately engaged—was a vigourous little woman, with fiery hair and a high colour. She, like the man-servant, felt the genial influence of her master's amiability. He looked at her, for the first time since she had entered the house. A twinkling light showed itself furtively in his dreary gray eyes: he took a dusty old hand-screen from the sideboard, and made her a present of it! "There," he said with his dry humour, "don't spoil your complexion before the kitchen fire." The cook possessed a sanguine temperament, and a taste to be honoured and encouraged—the taste for reading novels. She put her own romantic construction on the extraordinary compliment which the doctor's jesting humour had paid to her. As he walked out, grimly smiling and thumping his big stick on the floor, a new idea illuminated her mind. Her master admired her; her master was no ordinary man—it might end in his marrying her.

On his way to the telegraph office, Benjulia left Ovid's letters at Mrs. Gallilee's house.

If he had personally returned them, he would have found the learned lady in no very gracious humour. On the previous day she had discovered Carmina and Miss Minerva engaged in a private conference—without having been able even to guess what the subject under discussion between them might be. They were again together that morning. Maria and Zo had gone to church with their father; Miss Minerva was kept at home by a headache. At that hour, and under those circumstances, there was no plausible pretence which would justify Mrs. Gallilee's interference. She seriously contemplated the sacrifice of a month's salary, and the dismissal of her governess without notice.

When the footman opened the door, Benjulia handed in the packet of letters. After his latest experience of Mrs. Gallilee, he had no intention of returning her visit. He walked away without uttering a word.

The cable took his message to Mr. Morphew in these terms:—"Ovid's patient at Montreal. Was the complaint brain disease? Yes or no." Having made arrangements for the forwarding of the reply from his club, he set forth on the walk back to his house.

At five minutes to three, he was at home again. As the clock struck the hour, he rang the bell. The man-servant appeared, without the dinner. Benjulia's astonishing amiability—on his holiday—was even equal to this demand on its resources.