“Everything I have done has turned out wrong,” she said with tears running down her cheeks.  “Even this!  I would give anything to be able to tell you of poor Janet, and yet I thought my silence was for the best, for Nita and I could not mention her without quarrelling as we had never done before.  O, Mrs. Brownlow, I can’t think how you have ever forgiven me.”

“I can forgive every one but myself,” said Caroline sadly.  “If I had understood how to be a better mother, this would never have been.”

“You! the most affectionate and devoted.”

“Ah! but I see now it was only human love without the true moving spring, and so my poor child grew up without it, and these are the fruits.”

“But my dear, my dear, one can’t give these things.  Poor Janet always was a headstrong girl, like my poor Nita.  I know what you mean, and how one feels that if one had been better oneself,” said poor Miss Ray, ending in utter entanglement, but tender sympathy.

“She might have been a child of many prayers,” said the poor mother.

“Ah! but that she can still be,” said the old lady.  “She will turn back again, my dear.  Never fear.  I don’t think I could die easy if I did not believe she would!”

Jock brought back word that the lawyer had been entirely unaware of the Hermanns’ departure, and thought it looked bad.  He had seen them both, and his report was less brilliant than Nita’s.  Indeed Jock kept back the details, for Mr. Wakefield had described Mrs. Hermann as much altered, thin, haggard, shabby, and anxious, and though her husband fawned upon her demonstratively before spectators, something in her eyes betokened a certain fear of him.  He had also heard that Elvira was still making visits.  There was a romance about her, which, in addition to her beauty and future wealth, made people think her a desirable guest.  She was always more agreeable with strangers than in her own family; and as to the needful funds, she had her ample allowance; and no doubt her expectations secured her unlimited credit.  Her conduct was another pang, but it was lost in the keener pain Janet had given.

As his mother could not bear to face any one else, Jock thought the sooner he could get her home the better, and all they did was to buy some of Armine’s favourite biscuits, and likewise to stop at Rivington’s, where she chose the two smallest and neatest Greek Testaments she could find.

They reached home three hours before they were expected, and she went up at once to her room and her bed, leaving Jock to make the explanations, and receive all Bobus’s indignation at having allowed her to knock herself up by such a foolish expedition.

Chill, fatigue, and, far more, grief after her long course of worry really did bring on a feverish attack, so unprecedented in her that it upset the whole family, and if Mr. Ogilvie had not been almost equally wretched himself, he would have been amused to see these three great sons wandering forlorn about the house like stray chicks who had lost their parent hen, and imagining her ten times worse than she really was.