Some said that the stranger and his disciples had appeared miraculously in a sudden flash of light, and disappeared equally mysteriously. The extraordinary and heart-piercing likeness of the stranger to the generally accepted pictures of Our Lord was spoken of with amazement, incredulity, dismay, or contempt, as the case might be. And nearly all of the papers spoke of a beautiful woman's face beside the preacher, a face like the face of a Madonna--Raphael's picture in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican--alive and glowing. Here was something for an elderly and fashionable woman of the world to digest ere she was but hardly from her bed! Lady Kirwan pushed the paper towards Marjorie with trembling fingers. "Read that," she said, in a voice quite unlike her usual tones of smooth and gracious self-possession. Marjorie hurriedly scanned the columns of the paper. "Oh, mother!" she said tearfully. "Isn't it too utterly dreadful for words! How can Mary do such things? Lluellyn's death must have turned her brain." "Indeed, it is the only possible explanation, Marjorie," Lady Kirwan answered. "Poor Lluellyn's death and the strain of that dreadful hospital work. Fortunately, no one seems to have recognized her at the theatre. This preaching person attracted all the attention. But Mary must see a doctor at once. I shall send a little note to Sir William this morning, asking him to come round. Now you saw the poor girl last night, dear. Tell me exactly what occurred. Omit nothing." Marjorie launched into a full and breathless account of Mary's words and behavior the night before. The girl was quite incapable of anything like a coherent and unprejudiced narrative, and her story only increased Lady Kirwan's wonder and distress. "I tremble to think of the effect on your poor father's health," she said, when Marjorie had finished. "I have already been to his room this morning. He has seen the papers and is of course very upset. This man Joseph will of course have to be locked up. He is a dangerous lunatic. We have sent a message to Mary, and she is to meet us both in the library at ten o'clock. We mean to speak very seriously to her indeed. Perhaps you had better be there too. You have such influence with her, darling, and she is so fond of you." At ten o'clock Mary went down into the library. She found her aunt, uncle, and cousin already there. Lady Kirwan kissed her with warm affection, and Mary saw that there were tears in her aunt's kind eyes. Sir Augustus could not rise from his chair, but as she kissed him she saw nothing but the most genuine and almost fatherly feeling was animating him. A pang shot through the girl's sensitive heart. How kind and good they were to her--how she hated to wound and hurt them! Ah, if only she could make them see with her eyes! "Now sit down, dear," Lady Kirwan said, "and let us talk over this business quietly and sensibly, _en famille_, in short."