CHAPTER XLVII.
The slander on which Mrs.Gallilee had reckoned, as a means of separating Ovid and Carmina, was now a slander refuted by unanswerable proof.

And the man whose exertions had achieved this result, was her own lawyer--the agent whom she had designed to employ, in asserting that claim of the guardian over the ward which Teresa had defied.
As a necessary consequence, the relations between Mr.Mool and herself were already at an end.
There she lay helpless--her authority set at naught; her person outraged by a brutal attack--there she lay, urged to action by every reason that a resolute woman could have for asserting her power, and avenging her wrong--without a creature to take her part, without an accomplice to serve her purpose.
She got on her feet, with the resolution of despair.

Her heart sank--the room whirled round her--she dropped back on the sofa.

In a recumbent position, the giddiness subsided.

She could ring the hand-bell on the table at her side.