VIII.

Grace went to her own room to lay aside her shawl and hat, before going to Mrs. Maynard, and found her mother sewing there.

“Why, who is with Mrs. Maynard?” she asked.

“Miss Gleason is reading to her,” said Mrs. Breen.  “If she had any sort of active treatment, she could get well at once.  I couldn’t take the responsibility of doing anything for her, and it was such a worry to stay and see everything going wrong, that when Miss Gleason came in I was glad to get away.  Miss Gleason seems to believe in your Dr. Mulbridge.”

“My Dr. Mulbridge!” echoed Grace.

“She talked of him as if he were yours.  I don’t know what you’ve been saying to her about him; but you had better be careful.  The woman is a fool.”  She now looked up at her daughter for the first time.  “Why, what is the matter with you what kept you so long?  You look perfectly wild.”

“I feel wild,” said Grace calmly.  “The wind went down.”

“Was that all?  I don’t see why that should make you feel wild,” said her mother, dropping her spectacles to her sewing again.

“It was n’t all,” answered the girl, sinking provisionally upon the side of a chair, with her shawl still on her arm, and her hat in her hand.  “Mother, have you noticed anything peculiar about Mr. Libby?”

“He’s the only person who seems to be of the slightest use about here; I’ve noticed that,” said Mrs. Breen.  “He’s always going and coming for you and Mrs. Maynard.  Where is that worthless husband of hers?  Has n’t he had time to come from Cheyenne yet?”

“He’s on the way.  He was out at his ranch when Mr. Libby telegraphed first, and had to be sent for.  We found a despatch from him at Leyden, saying he had started,” Grace explained.

“What business had he to be so far away at all?” demanded her mother.  It was plain that Mrs. Breen was in her most censorious temper, which had probably acquired a sharper edge towards Maynard from her reconciliation with his wife.

Grace seized her chance to meet the worst.  “Do you think that I have done anything to encourage Mr. Libby?” she asked, looking bravely at her mother.

“Encourage him to do what?” asked Mrs. Breen, without lifting her eyes from her work.

“Encouraged him to—­think I cared for him; to—­to be in love with me.”

Mrs. Breen lifted her head now, and pushed her spectacles up on her forehead, while she regarded her daughter in silence.  “Has he been making love to you?”

“Yes.”

Her mother pushed her spectacles down again; and, turning the seam which she had been sewing, flattened it with her thumb-nail.  She made this action expressive of having foreseen such a result, and of having struggled against it, neglected and alone.  “Very well, then.  I hope you accepted him?” she asked quietly.

“Mother!”

“Why not?  You must like him,” she continued in the same tone.  “You have been with him every moment the last week that you have n’t been with Mrs. Maynard.  At least I’ve seen nothing of you, except when you came to tell me you were going to walk or to drive with him.  You seem to have asked him to take you most of the time.”