father of Mr. Julian Bayne.... No, no, no commands....
Thank you very much. Only the present address of Mr. Julian Bayne."

Once more the two in the library exchanged a glance expressive of more
than either would have been willing to put into words. For there was a
very definite interval of delay at the telephone, and it would need no
sorcerer to divine that the father might deem that this lady, who had so
signally befooled his son heretofore, had no beneficent concern to serve
with his address. But the old gentleman was evidently the pink of
punctilio. Moreover, Julian Bayne had already proved himself man enough
to be safely chargeable with his own affairs.

"At Crystal?... Thirty miles from Shaftesville?... Telephone exchange
there?... So much obliged! Good-by!"

The bitter disappointment! The torturing delay! Gladys dreaded to witness
their effects on Lillian, baffled at the outset in this miserable
delusion that her child still lived, because of a bit of stone in the
pocket of a coat he had worn. It would debilitate her as completely as if
her belief were founded on cogent reason. But Lillian, with a singularly
fresh aspect, with a buoyant energy, swept into the room after calling up
Crystal, cool, collected, as competent of dealing with delay and suspense
as factors in her plan as if it were some commonplace matter of business,
and naturally dependent on the contingencies which environ the domain of
affairs. The lamps came in and filled the room with a golden glow, as she
sat in a majestic assurance that gave her an aspect of a sort of regal
state. Her hair, ill-arranged, disordered in lying down throughout the
day in her reclining chair, showed in its redundance the splendor of its
tint and quality; her face, lately so wan and lean and ghastly, was
roseate, and the lines had strangely filled out in soft curves to their
wonted contour; her hands lay supple and white and quiet in her lap, with
not a tense ligament, not a throbbing fibre--delicate, beautiful
hands--it seemed odd to her companions to think how they had seen her
wring them in woe and clench them in despair. Her black gown with its
heavy folds of crape had an element of incongruity with that still,
assured, resolved presence, expressing so cheerful a poise, so confident
a control of circumstance. She did not expend herself in protest when at
ten o'clock they besought her to go to bed, to be called should the
telephone-bell ring. Her negation was so def