“Madame might have spared me this,” sighed the Athenian.  “My poor Janette!  She will not believe how her husband has been received.”

He was gone.  Caroline dropped into a chair, but the next moment she almost screamed—-

“Oh, we must not let him go thus!  He may revenge it on her!  Go after him, get his address, tell him she shall have her share if he will behave well to her.”

Jock fulfilled his mission according to his own judgment, and as he returned his mother started up.

“You have not brought him back!”

“I should rather think not!”

“Janet’s husband!  Oh, Jock, it is very dreadful!  My poor child!”

She had been a little lioness in face of the enemy, but she was trembling so hopelessly that Jock put her on a couch and knelt with his arm round her while she laid her head on his strong young shoulder.

“Let me fetch you some wine, mother darling,” he said.

“No, no-—to feel you is better than anything,” putting his arm closer—-

“What was it all about, mother?”

“Ah! you don’t know, yet you went straight to the point, my dear champion.”

“He was bullying you, that was enough.  I thought for a moment the brute was going to strike you.”

“That was only gesticulation.  I’m glad you didn’t knock him down when you made in to the rescue.”

She could laugh a little now.

“I should like to have done it.  What did he want?  Money, of course?”

“Not solely.  I can’t tell you all about it; but Janet saw some memoranda of your father’s, and he wants to get hold of them.”

“To pervert them to some quackery?”

“If not, I do him great injustice.”

“Give them up to a rogue like that!  I should guess not!  It will be some little time before he tries again.  Well done, little mother!”

“If he will not turn upon her.”

“What a speculation he must have thought her.”

“Don’t talk of it, Jock; I can’t bear to think of her in such hands.”

“Janet has a spirit of her own.  I should think she could get her way with her subtle Athenian.  Where did he drop from?”

“He overtook me on my way back from the Church, for indeed I did not mean to break my appointment.  I don’t think the servants knew who was here.  And Jock, if you mention it to the others, don’t speak of this matter of the papers.  Call it, as you may with truth, an attempt to extort money.”

“Very well,” he gravely said.

“It is true,” she continued, “that I have valuable memoranda of your father’s in my charge; but you must trust me when I say that I am not at liberty to tell you more.”

“Of course I do.  So the mother was really coming, like a good little Red-riding-hood, to bring her son’s dinner into the forest, when she met with the wolf!  Pray, has he eaten up the two kids at a mouthful?”