Miss Phipps did not answer and, turning, he saw that she was sitting in the rocking-chair, her hand to her forehead.  Her face was white.

“Dear me!” he exclaimed, in alarm.  “Miss Martha, are you ill?”

Still she did not answer and, very much frightened, he hastened to the door, opened it, and shouted for Primmie.  The summons for her handmaiden acted as a complete restorative.  Martha came to life at once.

“What in the world are you callin’ Primmie for?” she demanded.  “I don’t want her.  I wouldn’t have her see all that. . . .  Oh, good heavens and earth!”

Primmie was already in the room.  She, as Mr. Bangs would have described it, bounced in.

“Yes’m—­I mean yes, sir,” was her salutation.  “Here I be. . . .  Oh, my savin’ soul of Isrul!”

She had seen the mound of money upon the table.  Two minutes later Martha and her lodger were again alone in the sitting room.  Primmie had been, gently but firmly, escorted to outer darkness and the door closed behind her.  She was still asking questions and calling for her ransomed spirit and the ruler of Israel; they could hear her do so even through the door.  The exclamations died away in the direction of the kitchen.  Miss Phipps, who had done escort duty, turned toward Galusha and ruefully shook her head.

“I guess there isn’t anybody I’d rather should not have been here just now than Primmie Cash,” she observed.  “If there is I can’t think of their names.  Mr. Bangs, I know you meant well, because you couldn’t mean any other way, but would you mind tellin’ me why you called for her?”

Galusha blinked in bewildered fashion behind his spectacles.

“Why—­why,” he stammered, “you—­you see—­why, I spoke to you several times and you did not answer—­and you were so pale, I thought—­I thought—­”

“You thought I was sick and so you sung out for Primmie.  Humph! that’s a good deal like jumpin’ into the well to get out of the rain.  But there, never mind.  So I looked pale and didn’t answer when you spoke?  Do you wonder?  Mr. Bangs,” she moved to the table and laid a hand, which trembled a good deal, upon the pile of bills, “is this money really mine?”

“Yes—­oh, yes, indeed.  It is yours, of course.”

“All of it?  It doesn’t seem possible.  How much is there here?”

He told her.  She lifted the topmost bills from the heap and reverently laid them down again.

“Five thousand dollars!” she repeated.  “It’s like—­it’s like somethin’ in a dream, or a book, isn’t it?  I can hardly believe I am Martha Phipps.  So they did think Wellmouth Development was worth somethin’, after all.  And they paid—­why, Mr. Bangs, they paid the full price, didn’t they!  Twenty dollars a share; as much as father paid in the first place.”

“Yes—­ah—­yes, of course.  Yes, indeed.  Are you sure you feel quite well again, Miss Martha?”