“Yes, sir.  She’s in the sitting-room,” replied the maid, with round eyes of curiosity upon the pair.  Charlotte was making a desperate effort to walk by herself, to recover herself, but Anderson was still almost carrying her bodily.  She wondered dimly at the strange trembling of her limbs, at the way the bright orange and red of the marigolds and nasturtiums swam before her eyes, and once again she saw quite distinctly the evil face of the man peer out at her from among them; but this time she said nothing, for her subconsciousness of delusion was growing stronger.

Anderson went around to the front of the house, and his mother’s wondering face gazed from a window, then quickly disappeared.  When he reached the door she was there, filling it up with her large figure in its voluminous white draperies.

“What—­” she began, but Randolph interrupted her.

“Mother, this is Miss Carroll,” he said.  “She is not hurt, but she has had a terrible fright and shock.  Her people are all away from home, and I brought her here; it was nearer.  I want her to have some wine, and rest, and get over it before she goes home.”

Mrs. Anderson hesitated one second.  It was a pause for the gathering together of wits suddenly summoned for new and surprising emergencies; then she rose to the occasion.  She had her faults and her weaknesses, but she was one of the women in whom the maternal instinct is a power, and this girl appealed to it.  She stretched forth her white-clad arms, and she drew her away almost forcibly from her son.

“You poor child!” said she, in a voice which harked back to her son’s babyhood.  “Come right in.  You go and get a glass of that port-wine,” said she to Randolph, and she gave him a little push.  She enveloped and pervaded the girl in a voluminous embrace.

Charlotte felt the soft panting of a mother’s bosom under her head as she was led into the house.  “You poor, blessed child,” a soft voice cooed in her ear, a soft voice and yet a voice of strength.  Charlotte’s own mother had never been in the fullest sense a mother to her; a large part of the spiritual element of maternity had been lacking; but here was a woman who could mother a race, if once her heart of maternal love was awakened.

Charlotte was not led; that did not seem to be the action.  She felt as if she were borne along by sustaining wings spread under her weakness into a large, cool bedroom opening out of the sitting-room.  Then her dress was taken off, in what wise she scarcely knew; she was enrobed in one of Mrs. Anderson’s large, white wrappers, and was laid tenderly in a white bed, where presently she was sipping a glass of port-wine, with Mrs. Anderson sitting behind her and supporting her head.

“No, you can’t come in, Randolph,” she heard her say to her son, and her voice sounded almost angry.  After Charlotte had swallowed the wine, she lay back on the pillow, and she heard Mrs. Anderson talking softly to her in a sort of delicious dream, caused partly by the wine, which had mounted at once to her head, and partly by the sense of powerful protection and perfect peace and safety.