The next morning Dr. Robertson called to see Theodora, and was delighted with her selection. He did not stay long, but Mrs. Campbell was deeply offended because she was neither personally visited by him, nor yet invited by Theodora to meet him in her parlor. The lunch table was made a fiery furnace for her, and she had not the physical power to resist the evil. Assailed by a sudden faintness, she was obliged to leave the room. "Dora looks ill," said Christina. "She is always complaining lately. She had Dr. Fleming in the house twice last week, had she not, Isabel?" Isabel sighed deeply, and Christina absently nodded assent. She was counting the custard cups and considering the best way to appropriate the one intended for Theodora. Jepson, however, had noticed the white face and unsteady steps of the sick woman and assisted her to her own apartments. On his return he was confronted by the angry face of his mistress. She laid down her knife and fork with a clash and asked: "How dared you leave the room, Jepson? I hired you to wait on the Miss Campbells and myself." "I thought Mrs. Campbell looked very ill, ma'am." "You are here to obey orders, not to think. And _I_ am Mrs. Campbell, the other is Mrs. Robert. Do you understand?" "Yes, ma'am." For some hours Theodora lay on the sofa in deep sleep, or in some other form of oblivion. She came back to consciousness with the feeling of one shipwrecked on a dark, desolate land, and after a little sobbing cry, went upstairs to try and dress for dinner. A depressing anxiety, a horror of the great darkness from which she had just returned was on her, and as soon as her exhausting toilet was over, she went back to the parlor, and lifting a book sat down at a small table with it in her hand. Isabel, who was with her mother, heard both the ascent and descent, and directed her attention to it. "Dora has been dressing for dinner," she said. "Her sickness has not lasted long." "There was nothing the matter with her." "You are looking very well, mother, but I must change my gown. Why not go and question Dora about the minister's visit? She ought to tell you the why and the wherefore of it." "She _shall_ tell me. I will make the inquiry at once." Theodora was sitting with her elbows on the small table, her head in her hands and the open pages of the book below her heavy eyes, when the door was imperiously opened and Mrs. Campbell entered. "You have got over your impromptu attack, I see, very readily." "I feel better than I did a few hours ago." "Why did Dr. Robertson call on you this morning?" "He called on business--not socially." "Money as usual, I suppose." "He did not name money." "Then what did he name?" "His business." "And what was his business?" "I cannot tell you--yet."