As a necessary consequence, the relations between Mr. Mool and herself were already at an end.
There she lay helpless—her authority set at naught; her person outraged by a brutal attack—there she lay, urged to action by every reason that a resolute woman could have for asserting her power, and avenging her wrong—without a creature to take her part, without an accomplice to serve her purpose.
She got on her feet, with the resolution of despair. Her heart sank—the room whirled round her—she dropped back on the sofa. In a recumbent position, the giddiness subsided. She could ring the hand-bell on the table at her side. “Send instantly for Mr. Null,” she said to the maid. “If he is out, let the messenger follow him, wherever he may be.”
The messenger came back with a note. Mr. Null would call on Mrs. Gallilee as soon as possible. He was then engaged in attendance on Miss Carmina.
At that discovery, Mrs. Gallilee’s last reserves of independent resolution gave way. The services of her own medical attendant were only at her disposal, when Carmina had done with him! At the top of his letter the address, which she had thus far tried vainly to discover, stared her in the face: the house was within five minutes’ walk—and she was not even able to cross the room! For the first time in her life, Mrs. Gallilee’s imperious spirit acknowledged defeat. For the first time in her life, she asked herself the despicable question: Who can I find to help me?
Someone knocked at the door.
“Who is it?” she cried.
Joseph’s voice answered her. “Mr. Le Frank has called, ma’am—and wishes to know if you can see him.”
She never stopped to think. She never even sent for the maid to see to her personal appearance. The horror of her own helplessness drove her on. Here was the man, whose timely betrayal of Carmina had stopped her on her way to Ovid, in the nick of time! Here was the self-devoted instrument, waiting to be employed.
“I’ll see Mr. Le Frank,” she said. “Show him up.”