I told myself that Mrs. Riddle must be more, or less, of a mother even than my fancy painted her, if the mere suggestion of her coming could send her daughter into such a state of mind as this. Miss Riddle had always struck me as being about as cool a hand as you would be likely to meet. Now all at once, she seemed to be half beside herself with agitation. As she glared at me, she made me almost feel as if I had been behaving to her like a brute. "My aunt has only just now told me." "Told you what?" "That Mrs. Riddle arrived----" She interrupted me. "Mrs. Riddle? My mother? Well, go on?" She stamped on the floor. I almost felt as if she had stamped on me. I went on, disposed to feel that my back was beginning to rise. "My aunt has just told me that Mrs. Riddle arrived in England yesterday. She has written this morning to say that she is coming on at once." "But I don't understand!" She really looked as if she did not understand. "I thought--I was told that--she was going to remain abroad for months." "It seems that she has changed her mind." "Changed her mind!" Miss Riddle stared at me as if she thought that such a thing was inconceivable. "When did you say that she was coming?" "Aunt tells me that she is expecting her every moment." "Mr. Kempster, what am I to do?" She appealed to me, with outstretched hands, actually trembling, as it seemed to me with passion, as if I knew--or understood her either. "I am afraid, May, that Mrs. Riddle has not been to you all that a mother ought to be. I have heard something of this before. But I did not think that it was so bad as it seems." "You have heard? You have heard! My good sir, you don't know what you're talking about in the very least. There is one thing very certain, that I must go at once." "Go? May!" She moved forward. I believe she would have gone if I had not stepped between her and the door. I was beginning to feel slightly bewildered. It struck me that, perhaps, I had not broken the news so delicately as I might have done. I had blundered somehow, somewhere. Something must be wrong, if, after having been parted from her, for all I knew, for years, immediately on hearing of her mother's return, her first impulse was towards flight. "Well?" she cried, looking up at me like a small, wild thing. "My dear May, what do you mean? Where are you going? To your room?" "To my room? No! I am going away! away! Right out of this, as quickly as I can!" "But, after all, your mother is your mother. Surely she cannot have made herself so objectionable that, at the mere thought of her arrival, you should wish to run away from her, goodness alone knows where. So far as I understand she has disarranged her plans, and hurried across the Atlantic, for the sole purpose of seeing you." She looked at me in silence for a moment. As she looked, outwardly, she froze.