There was no help for it. Into Wyvis Brand's house Wyvis Brand's wife must go. Old Mrs. Brand came feebly into the garden, and identified the woman as the mother of Julian, and the wife of her eldest son. She could not be allowed to die at their door. She could not be taken to any other dwelling. There were laborers' cottages only in the immediate vicinity. She must be brought to the Red House and nursed by Janetta and Mrs. Brand. A woman with a broken blood-vessel, how unworthy soever she might be, could not be sent to the Beaminster Hospital three miles away. Common humanity forbade it. She must, for a time at least, be nursed in the place where she was taken ill.

So she was carried indoors and laid in the best bedroom, which was a gloomy-looking place until Janetta began to make reforms in it. When she had put fresh curtains to the windows, and set flowers on the window-sill, and banished some of the old black furniture, the room looked a trifle more agreeable, and there was nothing on which poor Juliet Brand's eye could dwell with positive dislike or dissatisfaction when she came to herself. But for some time she lay at the very point of death, and it seemed to Janetta and to all the watchers at the bedside that Mrs. Wyvis Brand could not long continue in the present world.

Mrs. Brand the elder seldom came into the room. She showed a singular horror of her daughter-in-law: she would not even willingly speak of her. She pleaded her ill-health as an excuse for not taking her share of the nursing; and when it seemed likely that Janetta would be worn out by it, she insisted that a nurse from the Beaminster Hospital should be procured. "It will not be for long," she said gloomily, when Janetta spoke regretfully of the expense. For Janetta was chief cashier and financier in the household.

But it appeared as if she were mistaken. Mrs. Brand did not die, as everybody expected. She lay for a time in a very weak state, and then began gradually to recover strength. Before long, she was able to converse, and then she showed a preference for Janetta's society which puzzled the girl not a little. For Julian she also showed some fondness, but he sometimes wearied, sometimes vexed her, and a visit of a very few minutes sufficed for both mother and son. Julian himself exhibited not only dislike but terror of her. He tried to run away and hide when the hour came for his daily visit to his mother's room; and when Janetta spoke to him on the subject rather anxiously, he burst into tears and avowed he was afraid.

"Afraid of what?" said Janetta.

But he only sobbed and would not tell.

"She can't hurt you, Julian, dear. She is ill and weak and lonely; and she loves you. It's not kind and loving of you to run away."

"I don't want to be unkind."

"Or unloving?" said Janetta.

"I don't love her," the boy answered, and bit his lip. His eye flashed for a moment, and then he looked down as if he were ashamed of the confession.

"Julian, dear? Your mother?"

"I can't help it. She hasn't been very much like a mother to me."

"You should not say that, dear. She loves you very much; and all people do not love in the same way."

"Oh, it isn't that," said the boy, as if in desperation. "I know she loves me, but—but——" And there he broke down in a passion of tears and sobs, amidst which Janetta could distinguish only a few words, such as "Suzanne said"—"father"—"make me wicked too."

"Do you mean," said Janetta, more shocked than she liked to show, "that you think your father wicked?"

"Oh, no, no! Suzanne said mother was not good. Not father."

"But, my dear boy, you must not say that your mother is not good. You have no reason to say so, and it is a terrible thing to say."

"She was unkind to father—and to me, too," Julian burst forth. "And she struck you; she is wicked and unkind, and I don't love her. And Suzanne said she would make me wicked, too, and that I was just like her; and I don't want—to—be—wicked."

"Nobody can make you wicked if you are certain that you want to be good," said Janetta, gravely; "and it was very wrong of Suzanne to say anything that could make you think evil of your mother."

"Isn't she naughty, then?" Julian asked in a bewildered tone.

"I do not know," Janetta answered, very seriously. "Only God knows that. We cannot tell. It is the last thing we ought say."

"But—but—you call me naughty sometimes?" the child said, fixing a pair of innocent, inquiring eyes upon her.

"Ah, but, my dear, I do not love you the less," said Janetta, out of the fullness of her heart, and she took him in her arms and kissed him.

"You are more like what I always think a mother ought to be," said Julian. What stabs children inflict on us sometimes by their artless words! Janetta shuddered a little as he spoke. "Then ought I to love her, whether she is good or bad?"

Janetta paused. She was very anxious to say only what was right.

"Yes, my darling," she said at last. "Love her always, through everything. She is your mother, and she has a right to your love."

And then, in simple words, she talked to him about right and wrong, about love and duty and life, until, with brimming eyes, he flung his arms about her, and said——

"Yes, I understand now. And I will love her and take care of her always, because God sent me to her to do that."

And he objected no more to the daily visit to his mother's room.

The sick woman's restless eyes, sharpened by illness, soon discerned the change in his demeanor.

"You've been talking to that boy about me," she said one day to Janetta, in a quick, sensitive voice.

"Nothing that would hurt you," Janetta replied, smiling.

"Oh, indeed, I'm not so sure of that. He used to run away from me, and now he sits beside me like a lamb. I know what you've been saying."

"What?" said Janetta.

"You've been saying that I'm going to die, and that he won't be bothered with me long. Eh?"

"No; nothing of that kind."

"What did you say, then?"

"I told him," said Janetta, slowly, "that God sent him to you as a little baby to be a help and comfort to you; and that it was a son's duty to protect and sustain his mother, as she had once protected and sustained him."

"And you think he understood that sort of nonsense?"

"You see for yourself whether he does or not," said Janetta, gently. "He likes to come and see you and sit beside you now."

Mrs. Wyvis Brand was silent for a minute or two. A tear gathered in each of her defiant black eyes, but she did not allow either of them to fall.

"You're a queer one," she said, with a hard laugh. "I never met anybody like you before. You're religious, aren't you?"

"I don't know: I should like to be," said Janetta, soberly.

"That's the queerest thing you've said yet. And all you religious people look down on folks like me."

"Then I'm not religious, for I don't look down on folks like you at all," said Janetta, calmly adopting Mrs. Brand's vocabulary.

"Well, you ought to. I'm not a very good sort myself."

Janetta smiled, but made no other answer: And presently Juliet Brand remarked—

"I dare say I'm not so bad as some people, but I've never been a saint, you know. And the day I came here I was in an awful temper. I struck you, didn't I?"

"Oh, never mind that," said Janetta, hastily. "You were tired: you hardly knew what you were doing."

"Yes, I did," said Mrs. Brand. "I knew perfectly well. But I hated you, because you lived here and had care of Julian. I had heard all about you at Beaminster, you see. And people said that you would probably marry Wyvis when he came home again. Oh, I've made you blush, have I? It was true then?"

"Not at all; and you have no right to say so."

"Don't be angry, my dear. I don't want to vex you. But it looks to me rather as though——Well, we won't say any more about it since it vexes you. I shan't trouble you long, most likely, and then Wyvis can do as he pleases. But you see it was that thought that maddened me when I came here, and I felt as if I'd like to fall upon you and tear you limb from limb. So I struck you on the face when you tried to thwart me."

"But—I don't understand," said Janetta, tremulously. "I thought you did not—love—Wyvis."

Mrs. Brand laughed. "Not in your way," she said in an enigmatic tone. "But a woman can hate a man and be jealous of him too. And I was jealous of you, and struck you. And in return for that you've nursed me night and day, and waited on me, until you're nearly worn out, and the doctor says I owe my life to you. Don't you think I'm right when I say you're a queer one?"

"It would be very odd if I neglected you when you were ill just because of a moment of passion on your part," said Janetta, rather stiffly. It was difficult to her to be perfectly natural just then.

"Would it? Some people wouldn't say so. But come—you say I don't love Wyvis?"

"I thought so—certainly."

"Well, look here," said Wyvis' wife. "I'll tell you something. Wyvis was tired of me before ever he married me. I soon found that out. And you think I should be caring for him then? Not I. But there was a time when I would have kissed the very ground he walked on. But he never cared for me like that."

"Then—why——".

"Why did he marry me? Chiefly because his old fool of a mother egged him on. She should have let us alone."

"Did she want him to marry you?" said Janetta, in some amaze.

"It doesn't seem likely, does it?" said Mrs. Brand, with a sharp, heartless little laugh. "But she sets up for having a conscience now and then. I was a girl in a shop, I may tell you, and Wyvis made love to me without the slightest idea of marrying me. Then Mrs. Brand comes on the scene: 'Oh, my dear boy, you mustn't make that young woman unhappy. I was made unhappy by a gentleman when I was a girl, and I don't want you to behave as he did."

"And that was very good of Mrs. Brand!" said Janetta, courageously.

Juliet made a grimace. "After a fashion. She had better have let us alone. She put Wyvis into a fume about his honor; and so he asked me to marry him. And I cared for him—though I cared more about his position—and I said yes. So we were married, and a nice cat and dog life we had of it together."

"And then you left him?"

"Yes, I did. I got tired of it all at last. But I always lived respectably, except for taking a little too much stimulant now and then; and I never brought any dishonor on his name. And at last I thought the best thing for us both would be to set him free. And I wrote to him that he was free. But there was some hitch—I don't know what exactly. Any way, we're bound to each other as fast as ever we were, so we needn't think to get rid of each other just yet."

Janetta felt a throb of thankfulness, for Margaret's sake. Suppose she had yielded to Wyvis' solicitations and become his wife, to be proved only no wife at all? Her want of love for Wyvis had at least saved her from terrible misery. Mrs. Brand went on, reflectively—

"When I'm gone, he can marry whom he likes. I only hope it'll be anybody as good as you. You'd make a capital mother to Julian. And I don't suppose I shall trouble anybody very long."

"You are getting better—you will soon be perfectly well."

"Nonsense: nothing of the kind. But if I am, I know one thing," said Mrs. Brand, in a petulant tone; "I won't be kept out of my rights any longer. This house seems to be nice and comfortable: I shall stay here. I am tired of wandering about the world."

Janetta was silent and went on with some needle-work.

"You don't like that, do you?" said Mrs. Brand, peering into her face. "You think I'd be better away."

"No," said Janetta. But she could not say more.

"Do you know where he is?"

"He? Wyvis?"

"Yes, my husband."

"I have an address. I do not know whether he is there or not, but he would no doubt get a letter if sent to the place. Do you wish to write to him?"

"No. But I want you to write. Write and say that I am here. Ask him to come back."

"You had better write yourself."

"No. He would not read it. Write for me."

Janetta could not refuse. But she felt it one of the hardest tasks that she had ever had to perform in life. She was sorry for Juliet Brand, but she shrank with all her heart and soul from writing to Wyvis to return to her. Yet what else could she do?