Janet went on asking questions about the others.  Her mother dreaded to put any, and only replied.  Janet asked where they had been living, and she answered: 

“In the old house, while the two Johns have been studying medicine.”

“Not Lucas?” cried Janet, sitting upright in her surprise.

“Yes, Lucas.  The dear fellow gave up all his prospects in the army, because he thought it would be more helpful to me for him to take this line, and he has passed so well, Janet.  He has got the silver medal, and his essay was the prize one.”

“And-—” Janet stood up and walked to the window, as she said “and you have told him—-”

“Yes.  But, Janet, it was too late.  Some hints of your father’s had been followed up, and the main discovery worked out, though not perfected.”

Janet’s eyes glistened for a moment as they used to do in angry excitement, and she asked, “Could he bear it?”

“He was chiefly concerned lest I should be disappointed.  Then he reminded me that the benefit to mankind had come all the sooner.”

“Ah!” said Janet with a gasp, “there’s the difference!” She did not explain further, but said, “It has not poisoned his life!”

Then seeking in her bag, she took out a packet.  “I wish you to know all about it, mother,” she said.  “I wrote this to send home by Elvira, but then my heart failed me.  It was well, since she lost my note.  I kept it, and when I did not hear from you, I thought I would leave it to be posted when all was over with me.  I should like you to read it, and I will tell you anything else you like to know.”

There came the interruption of the hotel luncheon, after which a room was engaged for Janet, and the use of a private parlour secured for the afternoon and evening.  Jock came and went.  He was very much excited about the frightful reports he heard of the ravages of yellow fever in the south, and went in search of medical papers and reports.  Janet directed him where to seek them.  “I was just starting to offer myself as an attendant,” she said.  “I shall still go, to-morrow.”

“You?  Oh, Janet, not now!” was her mother’s first exclamation.

“You will understand when you have read,” quietly said Janet.

All that afternoon, according to her manifest wish, her mother was reading that confession of hers, while she sat by replying to each question or comment, in the repose of a confidence such as had not existed for fifteen years.

“Magnum Bonum,” wrote Janet.  “So my father named it.  Alas! it has been Magnum Malum to me.  I have thought over how the evil began.  I think it must have been when I brooded over the words I caught at my father’s death-bed, instead of confessing to my mother that I had overheard them.  It might be reserve and dread of her grief, but it was not wholly so.  I did not respect her as I ought in my childish conceit.  I was an old-fashioned girl.  Grandmamma treated her like a petted eldest child, and I had not learnt to look up to her with any loyalty.  My uncle and aunt too, even while seeming to uphold her authority, betrayed how cheaply they held her.”