"Well, well, at all events the person who might be naturally supposed to have the best claim to some authority—or influence—influence let us say—over you."
"Has Mrs. Saulsbury sent you to say that she thinks she ought to have some influence over me?"
"Oh, no," he answered with that gentle deprecation of anger which is usually such fuel to anger's fire. "Mrs. Saulsbury has given up any idea of the kind long since—quite long since, I assure you. I think, if you will permit me to say it, that you were always a little unjust in your judgment of Mrs. Saulsbury. She is a true-hearted and excellent woman."
Minola said nothing. Perhaps she felt that she never had been quite in a position to do impartial justice to the excellence and the true-heartedness of Mrs. Saulsbury.
"But," Mr. Sheppard resumed, with a gentle motion of his hands, as if he would wave away now all superfluous and hopeless controversy, "that was not what I came to say."
Minola bowed slightly to signify that she was glad to know he was coming to the point at last.
"Mrs. Saulsbury is in very weak health, Miss Grey; something wrong with the lungs, I fear."
Minola was not much impressed at first. It was one of Mrs. Saulsbury's ways to cry "wolf" very often, as regarded the condition of her lungs, and up to the time of Minola's leaving, people had not been in serious expectation of the wolf's really putting his head in at the door.
Mr. Sheppard saw in Minola's face what she did not say.
"It is something really serious," he said. "Mr. Saulsbury knows it and every one. You have not been in correspondence with them for some time, Miss Grey."