"Well--just that. She came when I was only a child--and then when Annie was ill in Paris she went abroad with Mama--and I remember that she came back, and she used to come see me at school, for Mama, and once she took me up to Grandma's, in Brookline. She was a widow, and she had a child--or two, maybe. Why, Chris?" Her husband did not answer, and she repeated the question. "Well," he said, at last, flinging the end of his cigarette into the fire, "she came to see your mother to-day." Alice waited, a little at a loss. To her this had no particular significance. "She had her niece with her, young girl about eighteen," Christopher said. "Well--what _of_ it?" Alice demanded, with a sort of superb indifference to anything such a woman might do. He looked at her through his round eyeglasses, with the slight frown that many of life's problems brought to his handsome face. Then the glass fell, on its black ribbon, and he laughed. "That's just what I don't _get_," he said, good-humouredly. "But I'll tell you exactly what occurred. What's-His-Name, your mother's butler----" "Joseph." "Joseph. Joseph told me that at about four o'clock this Mrs. Sheridan came in. Your mother had told him that she was expecting the lady, and that he was to bring her upstairs. With her came this girl--I can't remember her name--but it was something Sheridan--Nora Sheridan, maybe. Leslie carried the girl off for tea, and the woman stayed with your mother. "Well, at five--or later, this Mrs. Sheridan ran into the hall, and it seems--she's all right now!--it seems that your mother had fainted." "Mama!" Alice said, anxiously, with an incredulous frown. "Yes, but don't worry. She's absolutely all right now. Leslie," Christopher went back to his narrative, "Leslie cried, and I suppose there was a scene. Mrs. Sheridan and the girl went home--Leslie dressed and went out--and your mother immediately telephoned Lee----" "Judge Lee?" "Yes--she said so. Lee's up in Westchester with his daughter, she couldn't get him----" "But, Chris, why did she want her lawyer?" "That's just it--_why_? Well, then she telephoned here for me--I was on my way there, as it happened, and just before eight Hendrick and I went in. I could see she was altogether up stage, so I sent Von on and had it out with her." "And what was her explanation, Chris?" Christopher laughed again. "I'll be darned," he said, thoughtfully, "if I can make head or tail of it! It would be funny if it wasn't that she's taking it so hard. She was in bed, and she had been crying--wouldn't eat any dinner----" "But, Chris," Alice said, worriedly, "what do you _make_ of it! What did she _say_?" "Well, she clasped my hand, and she said that she had an opportunity to undo a great wrong--and that I must help her--and not ask any questions--she was just acting as you and I would have her act under the circumstances----" "What circumstances?" Alice said, at an utter loss, as he paused. "She didn't say," he smiled.