But Cally did not sleep.  It had seemed to her that she must be alone for a time, to try to think out what was to happen; but now she saw that she had no need to think.  Of the complex nervous and emotional reaction which had brought her flying home, she had, indeed, seemed to understand nothing except that it was irresistible; her mind was like a dark cloud, refusing to yield up its meanings.  Nevertheless, there seemed to be no doubt as to what she must do now....

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

“Mamma, I want to send for Dr. Vivian—­to come and see me.”

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

“I—­I wanted to see you, to—­to ask you—­to talk with you—­as to what must be done....”

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