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Updated: June 15, 2025
On the next day events happened, the influence of which upon Carmina's excitable nature urged her to complete her unfinished letter, without taking the rest that she needed. Once more and, as the result proved, for the last time she wrote to her faithful old friend in these words: "Don't ask me to tell you how the night passed! Miss Minerva was the first person who came to me in the morning.
Miss Minerva thoroughly well knew the vindictive nature of the man. He neither forgave nor forgot he was Carmina's enemy for life. The month of July was near its end. On the morning of the twenty-eighth, Carmina was engaged in replying to a letter received from Teresa. Her answer contained a record of domestic events, during an interval of serious importance in her life under Mrs. Gallilee's roof.
The post had brought her a letter from Ovid enclosing a photograph, taken at Montreal, which presented him in his travelling costume. He wrote in a tone of cheerfulness, which revived Carmina's sinking courage, and renewed for a time at least the happiness of other days. The air of the plains of Canada he declared to be literally intoxicating.
As Miss Carmina's medical attendant, it was his duty to inform her guardian that her health had been unfavourably affected by an alarm in the house. Having described the nature of the alarm, he proceeded in these words: "You will, I fear, lose the services of your present music-master. Inquiries made this morning at the hospital, and reported to me, appear to suggest serious results.
He took his hat and stick, and walked out into the hall. "Can I be of further use?" he asked carelessly. "You will hear about the patient from Mr. Null." "You won't desert Carmina?" said Mr. Gallilee. "You will see her yourself, from time to time won't you?" "Don't be afraid; I'll look after her." He spoke sincerely in saying this. Carmina's case had already suggested new ideas. Mr.
Miss Minerva's mind was too seriously preoccupied to notice this aggravation of her pupil's offence. One subject absorbed her attention the interview then in progress between Carmina and her aunt. How would Mrs. Gallilee's scheme prosper now? Mr. Le Frank might, or might not, consent to be Carmina's teacher. Another result, however, was certain.
That well-meant experiment only left him feebler than ever. "What possessed her brother to make her Carmina's guardian?" he asked with the nearest approach to irritability of which he was capable. The lawyer was busy with his own thoughts. He only enlightened Mr. Gallilee after the question had been repeated. "I had the sincerest regard for Mr. Robert Graywell," he said.
The governess summoned her utmost power of self-restraint. She needed it, even to speak of the bare possibility of Carmina's marriage to Ovid, as if it was only a matter of speculative interest to herself. "Some people object to marriages between cousins," she said. "You are cousins. Some people object to marriages between Catholics and Protestants. You are a Catholic " No!
The dreaded necessity for Teresa's departure had been hastened by a telegram from Italy: Ovid felt for Carmina's distress with sympathies which made her dearer to him than ever. On the second morning after the visit to the Zoological Gardens, her fortitude had been severely tried. She had found the telegram under her pillow, enclosed in a farewell letter. Teresa had gone.
"Now tickle Carmina!" she said. He heard this without laughing: his fleshless lips never relaxed into a smile. To Carmina's unutterable embarrassment, he looked at her, when she laughed, with steadier attention than ever. Those coldly-inquiring eyes exercised some inscrutable influence over her. Now they made her angry; and now they frightened her.
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