t answer, and she repeated the question.

"Well," he said, at last, flinging the end of his cigarette into the
fire, "she came to see your mother to-day."

Alice waited, a little at a loss. To her this had no particular
significance.

"She had her niece with her, young girl about eighteen," Christopher
said.

"Well--what _of_ it?" Alice demanded, with a sort of superb indifference
to anything such a woman might do.

He looked at her through his round eyeglasses, with the slight frown
that many of life's problems brought to his handsome face. Then the
glass fell, on its black ribbon, and he laughed.

"That's just what I don't _get_," he said, good-humouredly. "But I'll
tell you exactly what occurred. What's-His-Name, your mother's
butler----"

"Joseph."

"Joseph. Joseph told me that at about four o'clock this Mrs. Sheridan
came in. Your mother had told him that she was expecting the lady, and
that he was to bring her upstairs. With her came this girl--I can't
remember her name--but it was something Sheridan--Nora Sheridan, maybe.
Leslie carried the girl off for tea, and the woman stayed with your
mother.

"Well, at five--or later, this Mrs. Sheridan ran into the hall, and it
seems--she's all right now!--it seems that your mother had fainted."

"Mama!" Alice said, anxiously, with an incredulous frown.

"Yes, but don't worry. She's absolutely all right now. Leslie,"
Christopher went back to his narrative, "Leslie cried, and I suppose
there was a scene. Mrs. Sheridan and the girl went home--Leslie dressed
and went out--and your mother immediately telephoned Lee----"

"Judge Lee?"

"Yes--she said so. Lee's up in Westchester with his daughter, she
couldn't get him----"

"But, Chris, why did she want her lawyer?"

"That's just it--_why_? Well, then she telephoned here for me--I was on
my way there, as it happened, and just before eight Hendrick and I went
in. I could see she was altogether up stage, so I sent Von on and had it
out with her."

"And what was her explanation, Chris?"

Christopher laughed again.

"I'll be darned," he said, thoughtfully, "if I can make head or tail of
it! It would be funny if it wasn't that she's taking it so hard. She was
in bed, and she had been crying--wouldn't eat any dinner----"

"But, Chris," Alice said, worriedly, "what do you _make_ of it! What did
she _say_?"

"Well, she clasped my hand, and she said that she had an opportunity to
undo a great wrong--and that I