g her power, and avenging her
wrong--without a creature to take her part, without an accomplice to
serve her purpose.

She got on her feet, with the resolution of despair. Her heart sank--the
room whirled round her--she dropped back on the sofa. In a recumbent
position, the giddiness subsided. She could ring the hand-bell on the
table at her side. "Send instantly for Mr. Null," she said to the maid.
"If he is out, let the messenger follow him, wherever he may be."

The messenger came back with a note. Mr. Null would call on Mrs.
Gallilee as soon as possible. He was then engaged in attendance on Miss
Carmina.

At that discovery, Mrs. Gallilee's last reserves of independent
resolution gave way. The services of her own medical attendant were
only at her disposal, when Carmina had done with him! At the top of his
letter the address, which she had thus far tried vainly to discover,
stared her in the face: the house was within five minutes' walk--and
she was not even able to cross the room! For the first time in her life,
Mrs. Gallilee's imperious spirit acknowledged defeat. For the first time
in her life, she asked herself the despicable question: Who can I find
to help me?

Someone knocked at the door.

"Who is it?" she cried.

Joseph's voice answered her. "Mr. Le Frank has called, ma'am--and wishes
to know if you can see him."

She never stopped to think. She never even sent for the maid to see to
her personal appearance. The horror of her own helplessness drove her
on. Here was the man, whose timely betrayal of Carmina had stopped
her on her way to Ovid, in the nick of time! Here was the self-devoted
instrument, waiting to be employed.

"I'll see Mr. Le Frank," she said. "Show him up."

The music-master looked round the obscurely lit room, and bowed to the
recumbent figure on the sofa.

"I fear I disturb you, madam, at an inconvenient time."

"I am suffering from illness, Mr. Le Frank; but I am able to receive
you--as you see."

She stopped there. Now, when she saw him, and heard him, some perverse
hesitation in her began to doubt him. Now, when it was too late, she
weakly tried to put herself on her guard. What a decay of energy (she
felt it herself) in the ready and resolute woman, equal to any emergency
at other times! "To what am I to attribute the favour of your visit?"
she resumed.

Even her voice failed her: it faltered in spite of her efforts to steady
it. Mr. Le Frank's vanity drew its own encou