Miss Lacey declined to allow Hannah to announce their visit.
"He might get out some back way," she declared to Dunham in a nervous undertone. She had outraged the proprieties by coming, as she read in the disapproving puckers around the old housekeeper's mouth. She was not going now to have the name without the game.
The library door opened.
Judge Trent looked up vaguely, then frowningly, then brought down his feet with a start.
"Good-evening," said Dunham; "we have come back."
Unexpected as was the sight of Miss Lacey in his sanctum, Judge Trent's astonishment was merged in the apprehension of what might be beyond. He looked over her shoulder with startled eyes as he arose.
Miss Martha understood. "No, indeed," she exclaimed, "she isn't here."
The host breathed a sigh of relief, and his sharp eyes began to question Dunham while he collected himself sufficiently to bring forward a chair for the lady.
"You honor me, Mar—Miss Lacey," he said.
"Thank you—Judge Trent," she returned, and giving his figure a comprehensive glance from top to toe, she touched her bonnet significantly as she sat down.
He did not observe the gesture. "Well," he said, resuming his seat and waving Dunham to another, "so you have come to tell me of your success. Very kind of you."
The speaker's endeavor to be courteous was offset by an impatient drumming of his fingers on the desk and the drawing together of his brows.
Martha ignored the signs. Let him drum. Let him scowl. "No," she returned impressively, "we have come to tell you of our failure."
Her manner was trying. It irritated her host still further. "How so?" he demanded.
She measured him with a severe gaze. "Calvin, you are wearing your hat," she announced frigidly.
"Eh? Oh! Pardon me." With hasty discomfiture the lawyer deposited his boon companion on the table.
"Oh! not in all that dust!" implored Miss Lacey.
He blew the vicinity vaguely. "Hannah doesn't do her duty by you!" she continued.
"Thank heaven, no," responded the judge devoutly.
Dunham was choking as quietly as possible by the mantelpiece, where he had remained standing despite his host's invitation.
"Say on, Mar—Miss Lacey," said the lawyer. "Do you mean you didn't find the girl? Make it short, please. Come to the point."
Miss Lacey's spirit arose. A human soul was involved, and no man, be he lawyer or lover, should browbeat or persuade her.
"Judge Trent," she began emphatically, fixing him with eyes which he but now perceived were swollen, "don't think to hurry me. I've come here on serious business. Men call you an eminent lawyer, a brilliant man. Now we'll see if you are sufficiently able to save your only sister's only child from an awful future."
Miss Lacey paused with working lips. Judge Trent perceived that she was deeply moved, and not endeavoring to make the most of an enjoyable situation. He pushed up his spectacles and looked questioningly at Dunham.
"You wouldn't come," pursued Miss Martha accusingly; "you wouldn't help me."
"I sent Dunham with full power."
"What could he do?" retorted Miss Lacey, in grief. "A mere boy like him, and no relation. Of course, after I had made a complete mess of it, what was left for him to do when she turned us out, but to come back with me?"
"You told me to follow Miss Lacey's lead," stated Dunham.
"Your place was there, Calvin. You might have saved the day even after my blunder."
"Perhaps you will tell me what blunder."
"Why, she was in the parlor curtains, Sylvia was, when we went in," Martha's voice trembled, "and I don't suppose, to be fair, that she thought of eavesdropping."
"No," put in Dunham feelingly, "I've no doubt she was watching for you; and I can imagine how eager and—and different her face looked then." His reminiscent tone was earnest, and his employer regarded him with sudden sharpness.
"So she's pretty," he said dryly.
"Oh, indeed she is—or would be if she was painted up the way they do," groaned Miss Martha. "She's too pale—but that might have been all anger."
"No," said Dunham quickly, "she's had typhoid fever."
Miss Lacey stared at him. "How do you know that?" she demanded.
"Why—why—of course," stammered John, "her short curly hair meant that. Didn't you think of it at once?"
"That's an absurd conclusion," returned Miss Martha, while Judge Trent quietly regarded the young man's flushing countenance.
"But if it should be true, Calvin," continued the lady miserably, "she's not fit yet to go to work at anything! I haven't told you yet. I talked right out to Mr. Dunham in that parlor about our not wanting her, you and I; and how we wished she'd stayed West. Oh, I've gone over it dozens of times since, and it keeps growing worse. Every word I said was true, and it was perfectly compatible with our intention to help her all the time; but she couldn't realize that, and I was just sort of explaining to Mr. Dunham your coolness in the matter by telling him how miserable Sam made Laura when the girl jumped out of those curtains like a—like a perfect fury, didn't she, Mr. Dunham?"
He nodded. "She seemed at a white heat with righteous indignation," he agreed.
Miss Martha took up the tale.
"Then she began to score us all, Calvin, and perhaps you could have fixed it, but she simply froze me and my apologies; and then that child positively told us to go. I tried to stand my ground, and Mr. Dunham came out with your good sensible offer to send her to the Young Women's Christian Association, and I tried my best to persuade her to let me take her over there; but she laughed us to scorn, or smiled scorn, anyway; but I would not leave her until she told me what she was going to do—and what do you think it is, that your niece, Judge Trent's niece, proposes to do? She proposes to go on the stage," finished Miss Martha, in a hollow voice—"to go on the stage and marry an actor; an actor named Nat!"
"Fat and middle-aged and mediocre," added Dunham.
Miss Lacey turned on him quickly. "Sylvia didn't say a word about his being fat and middle-aged!" she declared severely. "Are you presuming to make fun of this situation, Mr. Dunham?"
Judge Trent's keen gaze again noted the crimsoning ears of his assistant.
"Why—why, of course I wouldn't do that, Miss Lacey," blurted out the young man. "Didn't you notice what she said about his being her father's friend? What else could he be but middle-aged, and probably fat?"
"Well, we don't need to call on our imagination for anything," said Miss Martha coldly. "The facts are sufficient." She turned back to Judge Trent.
"So there's that young creature, Calvin, our own flesh and blood, alone in that rattle-te-banging city, without money for all we know, going to pin her faith to an actor man, and each of us with our homes, closed against her, as she feels, and you know we did feel so, too, Calvin; and when I put myself in her place and remember the things she heard me say, I don't blame her for refusing our advice and help. She's young and high-strung, and oh, I've made such a mess of it, and—and—say something, Calvin Trent!" Miss Lacey made the addition so explosively that the judge jumped. "Say you'll send some of your detectives to keep watch of her—quick—to-morrow—before she has a chance to get away from that hotel and get lost to us!"
Martha suddenly raised her clasped hands to her face, and burying her eyes in her handkerchief, wept miserably.
Judge Trent cleared his throat, and Dunham stirred and felt his knowledge weigh upon him guiltily.
"Don't get nervous,