CHAPTER XXVIII.
The last lines addressed by Carmina to her old nurse were completed on the seventeenth of August, and were posted that night.
The day that followed was memorable to Carmina, and memorable to Mrs.
Gallilee.

Doctor Benjulia had his reasons also for remembering the eighteenth of August.
Still in search of a means to undermine the confidence which united Ovid and Carmina, and still calling on her invention in vain, Mrs.Gallilee had passed a sleepless night.

Her maid, entering the room at the usual hour, was ordered to leave her in bed, and not to return until the bell rang.

On ordinary occasions, Mrs.Gallilee was up in time to receive the letters arriving by the first delivery; the correspondence of the other members of the household being sorted by her own hands, before it was distributed by the servant.

On this particular morning (after sleeping a little through sheer exhaustion), she entered the empty breakfast-room two hours later than usual.