Mrs. Temple, who never lost her head in emergencies, in five minutes had Judith in a fair way of coming to herself. Freke said truthfully that he never was so surprised in his life as when Judith fell over. Mrs. Temple could not account for it either, and proposed to leave the solution to Dr. Wortley when he should be sent for in the morning. In a few minutes more Judith came to and sat up. Almost her first conscious glance fell on Freke. She gazed at him steadily, and in an instant the conviction that what he had said was mere wanton cruelty came to her. Freke himself avoided her glance uneasily.
“Honey, tell yo’ ole mammy wh’yar hu’ts you,” pleaded Delilah, anxious to take charge of the case in advance of Dr. Wortley.
“Nowhere at all. I only want to get to bed.—Mother, I hope father wasn’t waked.”
“My dear, nothing short of an explosion would wake him.”
Mrs. Temple wisely refrained from tormenting Judith with questions. Her fainting-fit was certainly unaccountable, but Mrs. Temple remembered once or twice in her own early days when she had done the same thing. So she merely gave Judith some brandy-and-water, and in a few minutes, with Delilah’s help, got her on the old-fashioned sofa.
While Mrs. Temple and Delilah were stirring about the room, shutting up for the night and raking the fire down, Freke came up to Judith. Revenge was familiar to him, but not revenge on women, and remorse was altogether new to him.
“What I told you,” he began, awkwardly, “the facts in the case—”
“Say no more about it; I don’t believe you!” answered Judith in a low voice, but scornful beyond description.
Freke’s rage blazed up under that tone.