J. S. Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864) - Chaps. XVI-XX

Chapter XVI: Doctor Bryerly Looks In
What had I done to excite this ungovernable fury? We had often before had such small differences, and she had contented herself with being sarcastic, teasing, and impertinent.
 ‘So, for future you are gouvernante and I the cheaile for you to command - is not so? - and you must direct where we shall walk. Très-bien! we shall see; Monsieur Ruthyn he shall know everything. For me I do not care - not at all - I shall be rather pleased, on the contrary. Let him decide. If I shall be responsible for the conduct and the health of Mademoiselle his daughter, it must be that I shall have authority to direct her wat she must do - it must be that she or I shall obey. I ask only witch shall command for the future - voilà tout!’
 I was frightened, but resolute - I dare say I looked sullen and uncomfortable. At all events, she seemed to think she might possibly succeed by wheedling; so she tried coaxing and cajoling, and patted my cheek, and predicted that I would be ‘a good cheaile,’ and not ‘vex poor Madame,’ but do for the future ‘wat she tell a me.’
 She smiled her wide wet grin, smoothed my hand, and patted my cheek, and would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm have kissed me; but I withdrew, and she commented only with a little laugh, and a ‘Foolish little thing! but you will be quite amiable just now.’
 ‘Why, Madame,’ I asked, suddenly raising my head and looking her straight in the face, ‘do you wish me to walk to Church Scarsdale so particularly to-day?’
 She answered my steady look with a contracted gaze and an unpleasant frown.
 ‘Wy do I? - I do not understand a you; there is no particular day - wat folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such pretty place. There is all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think I want to keel a you and bury you in the churchyard?’
 And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for a ghoul.
 ‘Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if you tell me me go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say, go that a way, I weel go thees - you are rasonable leetle girl - come along - alons donc - we shall av soche agreeable walk - weel a you?’
 But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice, but a profound fear that governed me. I was then afraid - yes, afraid. Afraid of what? Well, of going with Madame de la Rougierre to Church Scarsdale that day. That was all. And I believe that instinct was true.
 She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit her lip. She saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon her drab features. A little scowl - a little sneer - wide lips compressed with a false smile, and a leaden shadow mottling all. Such was the countenance of the lady who only a minute or two before had been smiling and murmuring over the stile so amiably with her idiomatic ‘blarney,’ as the Irish call that kind of blandishment.
 There was no mistaking the malignant disappointment that hooked and warped her features - my heart sank - a tremendous fear overpowered me. Had she intended poisoning me? What was in that basket? I looked in her dreadful face. I felt for a minute quite frantic. A feeling of rage with my father, with my Cousin Monica, for abandoning me to this dreadful rogue, took possession of me, and I cried, helplessly wringing my hands -
 ‘Oh! it is a shame - it is a shame - it is a shame!’
 The countenance of the gouvernante relaxed. I think she in turn was frightened at my extreme agitation. It might have worked unfavourably with my father.
 ‘Come, Maud, it is time you should try to control your temper. You shall not walk to Church Scarsdale if you do not like - I only invite. There! It is quite as you please, where we shall walk then? Here to the peegeon-house? I think you say. Tout bien! Remember I concede you everything. Let us go.’
 We went, therefore, towards the pigeon-house, through the forest trees; I not speaking as the children in the wood did with their sinister conductor, but utterly silent and scared; she silent also, meditating, and sometimes with a sharp side-glance gauging my progress towards equanimity. Her own was rapid; for Madame was a philosopher, and speedily accommodated herself to circumstances. We had not walked a quarter of an hour when every trace of gloom had left her face, which had assumed its customary brightness, and she began to sing with a spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower - in old times a pigeon-house - she grew quite frisky, and twirled her basket in the air, and capered to her own singing.
 Under the shadow of the broken wall, and its ivy, she sat down with a frolicsome plump, and opened her basket, inviting me to partake, which I declined. I must do her justice, however, upon the suspicion of poison, which she quite disposed of by gobbling up, to her own share, everything which the basket contained.
 The reader is not to suppose that Madame’s cheerful demeanour indicated that I was forgiven. Nothing of the kind. One syllable more, on our walk home, she addressed not to me. And when we reached the terrace, she said -
 ‘You will please, Maud, remain for two - three minutes in the Dutch garden, while I speak with Mr. Ruthyn in the study.’
 This was spoken with a high head and an insufferable smile; and I more haughtily, but quite gravely, turned without disputing, and descended the steps to the quaint little garden she had indicated.
 I was surprised and very glad to see my father there. I ran to him, and began, ‘Oh! papa!’ and then stopped short, adding only, ‘may I speak to you now?’
 He smiled kindly and gravely on me.
 ‘Well, Maud, say your say.’
 ‘Oh, sir, it is only this: I entreat that our walks, mine and Madame’s may be confined to the grounds.’
 ‘And why?’
 ‘I - I’m afraid to go with her.’
 ‘Afraid!’ he repeated, looking hard at me. ‘Have you lately had a letter from Lady Knollys?’
 ‘No, papa, not for two months or more.’
 There was a pause.
 ‘And why afraid, Maud?’
 ‘She brought me one day to Church Scarsdale; you know what a solitary place it is, sir; and she frightened me so that I was afraid to go with her into the churchyard. But she went and left me alone at the other side of the stream, and an impudent man passing by stopped and spoke to me, and seemed inclined to laugh at me, and altogether frightened me very much, and he did not go till Madame happened to return.’
 ‘What kind of man - young or old?’
 ‘A young man; he looked like a farmer’s son, but very impudent, and stood there talking to me whether I would or not; and Madame did not care at all, and laughed at me for being frightened; and, indeed, I am very uncomfortable with her.’
 He gave me another shrewd look, and then looked down cloudily and thought.
 ‘You say you are uncomfortable and frightened. How is this - what causes these feelings?’
 ‘I don’t know, sir; she likes frightening me; I am afraid of her - we are all afraid of her, I think. The servants, I mean, as well as I.’
 My father nodded his head contemptuously, twice or thrice, and muttered, ‘A pack of fools!’
 ‘And she was so very angry to-day with me, because I would not walk again with her to Church Scarsdale. I am very much afraid of her. I - ‘ and quite unpremeditatedly I burst into tears.
 ‘There, there, little Maud, you must not cry. She is here only for your good. If you are afraid - even foolishly afraid - it is enough. Be it as you say; your walks are henceforward confined to the grounds; I’ll tell her so.’
 I thanked him through my tears very earnestly.
 ‘But, Maud, beware of prejudice; women are unjust and violent in their judgments. Your family has suffered in some of its members by such injustice. It behoves us to be careful not to practise it.’
 That evening in the drawing-room my father said, in his usual abrupt way -
 ‘About my departure, Maud: I’ve had a letter from London this morning, and I think I shall be called away sooner than I at first supposed, and for a little time we must manage apart from one another. Do not be alarmed. You shall not be in Madame de la Rougierre’s charge, but under the care of a relation; but even so, little Maud will miss her old father, I think.’
 His tone was very tender, so were his looks; he was looking down on me with a smile, and tears were in his eyes. This softening was new to me. I felt a strange thrill of surprise, delight, and love, and springing up, I threw my arms about his neck and wept in silence. He, I think, shed tears also.
 ‘You said a visitor was coming; some one, you mean, to go away with. Ah, yes, you love him better than me.’
 ‘No, dear, no; but I fear him; and I am sorry to leave you, little Maud.’
 ‘It won’t be very long,’ I pleaded.
 ‘No, dear,’ he answered with a sigh.
 I was tempted almost to question him more closely on the subject, but he seemed to divine what was in my mind, for he said -
 ‘Let us speak no more of it, but only bear in mind, Maud, what I told you about the oak cabinet, the key of which is here,’ and he held it up as formerly: ‘you remember what you are to do in case Doctor Bryerly should come while I am away?’
 ‘Yes, sir.’
 His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed formalities.
 It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did arrive at Knowl, quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my father. He was to stay only one night.
 He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my father, who seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected, and Mrs. Rusk inveighing against ‘them rubbitch,’ as she always termed the Swedenborgians, told me ‘they were making him quite shaky-like, and he would not last no time, if that lanky, lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowling in and out of his room like a tame cat.’
 I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be that connected my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something more than the convictions of their strange religion could account for. There was something that profoundly agitated my father. It may not be reasonable, but so it is. The person whose presence, though we know nothing of the cause of that effect, is palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear to us, grows odious, and I began to detest Doctor Bryerly.
 It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery, near the staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his glossy black suit.
 I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his influence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by with a mere salutation, as he expected, ‘May I ask a question, Doctor Bryerly?’
 ‘Certainly’
 ‘Are you the friend whom my father expects?’
 ‘I don’t quite see.’
 ‘The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some distance, I think, and for some little time?’
 ‘No,’ said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.
 ‘And who is he?’
 ‘I really have not a notion, Miss.’
 ‘Why, he said that you knew,’ I replied.
 The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.
 ‘Will he stay long away? pray tell me.’
 The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and darkened eyes, like one who half reads another’s meaning; and then he said a little briskly, but not sharply -
 ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must have mistaken; there’s nothing that I know.’
 There was a little pause, and he added -
 ‘No. He never mentioned any friend to me.’ I fancied that he was made uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide the truth. Perhaps I was partly right.
 ‘Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, pray who is the friend, and where is he going?’
 ‘I do assure you,’ he said, with a strange sort of impatience, ‘I don’t know; it is all nonsense.’
 And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.
 A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.
 ‘Doctor, one word,’ I said, I believe, quite wildly. ‘Do you - do you think his mind is at all affected?’
 ‘Insane?’ he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness, that brightened into a smile. ‘Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner man in England.’
 Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed, notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon Doctor Bryerly went away.

Chapter XVII: An Adventure
 For many days after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to me. As for lessons, I was not much troubled with them. It was plain, too, that my father had spoken to her, for she never after that day proposed our extending our walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.
 Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it was possible for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself effectually, without passing its limits. So we took occasionally long walks.
 After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a time she hardly spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil abstraction, she once more, and somewhat suddenly, recovered her spirits, and grew quite friendly. Her gaieties and friendliness were not reassuring, and in my mind presaged approaching mischief and treachery. The days were shortening to the wintry span. The edge of the red sun had already touched the horizon as Madame and I, overtaken at the warren by his last beams, were hastening homeward.
 A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park, to which a distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this unfrequented road, I was surprised to see a carriage standing there. A thin, sly postilion, with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Woodward used to attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very pink and white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright eyes - fat, bold, and rather cross, she looked - and in her bold way she examined us curiously as we passed.
 I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an intending visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several hours in a vain search for the house.
 ‘Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say they have missed their way,’ whispered I.
 ‘Eh bien, they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys; allons!’
 But I asked the man as we passed, ‘Do you want to reach the house?’
 By this time he was at the horses’ heads, buckling the harness.
 ‘Noa,’ he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but, recollecting his politeness, he added, ‘Noa, thankee, misses, it’s what they calls a picnic; we’ll be takin’ the road now.’
 He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.
 ‘Come - nonsense!’ whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she whisked me by the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.
 Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little hillocks. The sun was down by this time, blue shadows were stretching round us, colder in the splendid contrast of the burnished sunset sky.
 Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in advance of us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were standing smoking and chatting at intervals: one tall and slim, with a high chimney-pot, worn a little on one side, and a white great-coat buttoned up to the chin; the other shorter and stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gentlemen were facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the eminence, but turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did so, I remember so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with the simultaneousness of a drill. The third figure sustained the picnic character of the group, for he was repacking a hamper. He stood suddenly erect as we drew near, and a very ill-looking person he was, low-browed, square-chinned, and with a broad, broken nose. He wore gaiters, and was a little bandy, very broad, and had a closely-cropped bullet head, and deep-set little eyes. The moment I saw him, I beheld the living type of the burglars and bruisers whom I had so often beheld with a kind of scepticism in Punch. He stood over his hamper and scowled sharply at us for a moment; then with the point of his foot he jerked a little fur cap that lay on the ground into his hand, drew it tight over his lowering brows, and called to his companions, just as we passed him - ‘Hallo! mister. How’s this?’
 ‘All right,’ said the tall person in the white great-coat, who, as he answered, shook his shorter companion by the arm, I thought angrily.
 This shorter companion turned about. He had a muffler loose about his neck and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall man gave him a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I fancied a little angry, for he said, as it seemed, a sulky word or two.
 The gentleman in the white surtout, however, standing direct in our way, raised his hat with a mock salutation, placing his hand on his breast, and forthwith began to advance with an insolent grin and an air of tipsy frolic.
 ‘Jist in time, ladies; five minutes more and we’d a bin off. Thankee, Mrs. Mouser, ma’am, for the honour of the meetin’, and more particular for the pleasure of making your young lady’s acquaintance - niece, ma’am? daughter, ma’am? granddaughter, by Jove, is it? Hallo! there, mild ‘n, I say, stop packin’.’ This was to the ill-favoured person with the broken nose. ‘Bring us a couple o’ glasses and a bottle o’ curaçoa; what are you fear’d on, my dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg’lar charmer, wouldn’t hurt a fly, hey Lolly? Isn’t he pretty, Miss? and I’m Sir Simon Sugarstick - so called after old Sir Simon, ma’am; and I’m so tall and straight, Miss, and slim - ain’t I? and ever so sweet, my honey, when you come to know me, just like a sugarstick; ain’t I, Lolly, boy?’
 ‘I’m Miss Ruthyn, tell them, Madame,’ I said, stamping on the ground, and very much frightened.
 ‘Be quaite, Maud. If you are angry, they will hurt us; leave me to speak,’ whispered the gouvernante.
 All this time they were approaching from separate points. I glanced back, and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard or two, with his arm raised and one finger up, telegraphing, as it seemed, to the gentlemen in front.
 ‘Be quaite, Maud,’ whispered Madame, with an awful adjuration, which I do not care to set down. ‘They are teepsy; don’t seem ‘fraid.’
 I was afraid - terrified. The circle had now so narrowed that they might have placed their hands on my shoulders.
 ‘Pray, gentlemen, wat you want? weel a you ‘av the goodness to permit us to go on?’
 I now observed for the first time, with a kind of shock, that the shorter of the two men, who prevented our advance, was the person who had accosted me so offensively at Church Scarsdale. I pulled Madame by the arm, whispering, ‘Let us run.’
 ‘Be quaite, my dear Maud,’ was her only reply.
 ‘I tell you what,’ said the tall man, who had replaced his high hat more jauntily than before on the side of his head, ‘We’ve caught you now, fair game, and we’ll let you off on conditions. You must not be frightened, Miss. Upon my honour and soul, I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I call him Lord Lollipop; it’s only chaff, though; his name’s Smith. Now, Lolly, I vote we let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs. Smith; she’s sitting in the carriage, and keeps Mr. S. here in precious good order, I promise you. There’s easy terms for you, eh, and we’ll have a glass o’ curaçoa round, and so part friends. Is it a bargain? Come!’
 ‘Yes, Maud, we must go - wat matter?’ whispered Madame vehemently.
 ‘You shan’t,’ I said, instinctively terrified.
 ‘You’ll go with Ma’am, young ‘un, won’t you?’ said Mr. Smith, as his companion called him.
 Madame was holding my arm, but I snatched it from her, and would have run; the tall man, however, placed his arms round me and held me fast with an affectation of playfulness, but his grip was hard enough to hurt me a good deal. Being now thoroughly frightened, after an ineffectual struggle, during which I heard Madame say, ‘You fool, Maud, weel you come with me? see wat you are doing,’ I began to scream, shriek after shriek, which the man attempted to drown with loud hooting, peals of laughter, forcing his handkerchief against my mouth, while Madame continued to bawl her exhortations to ‘be quaite’ in my ear.
 ‘I’ll lift her, I say!’ said a gruff voice behind me.
 But at this instant, wild with terror, I distinctly heard other voices shouting. The men who surrounded me were instantly silent, and all looked in the direction of the sound, now very near, and I screamed with redoubled energy. The ruffian behind me thrust his great hand over my mouth.
 ‘It is the gamekeeper,’ cried Madame. ‘Two gamekeepers - we are safe - thank Heaven!’ and she began to call on Dykes by name.
 I only remember, feeling myself at liberty - running a few steps - seeing Dykes’ white furious face - clinging to his arm, with which he was bringing his gun to a level, and saying, ‘Don’t fire - they’ll murder us if you do.’
 Madame, screaming lustily, ran up at the same moment.
 ‘Run on to the gate and lock it - I’ll be wi’ ye in a minute,’ cried he to the other gamekeeper; who started instantly on this mission, for the three ruffians were already in full retreat for the carriage.
 Giddy - wild - fainting - still terror carried me on.
 ‘Now, Madame Rogers - s’pose you take young Misses on - I must run and len’ Bill a hand.’
 ‘No, no; you moste not,’ cried Madame. ‘I am fainting myself, and more villains they may be near to us.’
 But at this moment we heard a shot, and, muttering to himself and grasping his gun, Dykes ran at his utmost speed in the direction of the sound.
 With many exhortations to speed, and ejaculations of alarm, Madame hurried me on toward the house, which at length we reached without further adventure.
 As it happened, my father met us in the hall. He was perfectly transported with fury on hearing from Madame what had happened, and set out at once, with some of the servants, in the hope of intercepting the party at the park-gate.
 Here was a new agitation; for my father did not return for nearly three hours, and I could not conjecture what might be occurring during the period of his absence. My alarm was greatly increased by the arrival in the interval of poor Bill, the under-gamekeeper, very much injured.
 Seeing that he was determined to intercept their retreat, the three men had set upon him, wrested his gun, which exploded in the struggle, from him, and beat him savagely. I mention these particulars, because they convinced everybody that there was something specially determined and ferocious in the spirit of the party, and that the fracas was no mere frolic, but the result of a predetermined plan.
 My father had not succeeded in overtaking them. He traced them to the Lugton Station, where they had taken the railway, and no one could tell him in what direction the carriage and posthorses had driven.
 Madame was, or affected to be, very much shattered by what had occurred. Her recollection and mine, when my father questioned us closely, differed very materially respecting many details of the personnel of the villanous party. She was obstinate and clear; and although the gamekeeper corroborated my description of them, still my father was puzzled. Perhaps he was not sorry that some hesitation was forced upon him, because although at first he would have gone almost any length to detect the persons, on reflection he was pleased that there was not evidence to bring them into a court of justice, the publicity and annoyance of which would have been inconceivably distressing to me.
 Madame was in a strange state - tempestuous in temper, talking incessantly - every now and then in floods of tears, and perpetually on her knees pouring forth torrents of thanksgiving to Heaven for our joint deliverance from the hands of those villains. Notwithstanding our community of danger and her thankfulness on my behalf, however, she broke forth into wrath and railing whenever we were alone together.
 ‘Wat fool you were! so disobedient and obstinate; if you ‘ad done wat I say, then we should av been quaite safe; those persons they were tipsy, and there is nothing so dangerous as to quarrel with tipsy persons; I would ‘av brought you quaite safe - the lady she seem so nice and quaite, and we should ‘av been safe with her - there would ‘av been nothing absolutely; but instead you would scream and pooshe, and so they grow quite wild, and all the impertinence and violence follow of course; and that a poor Bill - all his beating and danger to his life it is cause entairely by you.’
 And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding generally exhibits.
 ‘The beast!’ exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary Quince were in my room together, ‘with all her crying and praying, I’d like to know as much as she does, maybe, about them rascals. There never was sich like about the place, long as I remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch! with them unmerciful big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grinning here, and crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French hypocrite!’
 Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs. Rusk rejoined, but I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper spoke with reflection or not, what she said affected me strangely. Through the smallest aperture, for a moment, I had had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not peculiarities of Madame’s demeanour and advice during the adventure partly accounted for by the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to Church Scarsdale have had any purpose of the same sort? What was proposed? How was Madame interested in it? Were such immeasurable treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not explain nor quite believe in the shapeless suspicion that with these light and bitter words of the old housekeeper had stolen so horribly into my mind.
 After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction with something like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful sense of danger.
 ‘Oh! Mary Quince,’ I cried, ‘do you think she really knew?’
 ‘Who, Miss Maud?’
 ‘Do you think Madame knew of those dreadful people? Oh, no - say you don’t - you don’t believe it - tell me she did not. I’m distracted, Mary Quince, I’m frightened out of my life.’
 ‘There now, Miss Maud, dear - there now, don’t take on so - why should she? - no sich a thing. Mrs. Rusk, law bless you, she’s no more meaning in what she says than the child unborn.’
 But I was really frightened. I was in a horrible state of uncertainty as to Madame de la Rougierre’s complicity with the party who had beset us at the warren, and afterwards so murderously beat our poor gamekeeper. How was I ever to get rid of that horrible woman? How long was she to enjoy her continual opportunities of affrighting and injuring me?
 ‘She hates me - she hates me, Mary Quince; and she will never stop until she has done me some dreadful injury. Oh! will no one relieve me - will no one take her away? Oh, papa, papa, papa! you will be sorry when it is too late.’
 I was crying and wringing my hands, and turning from side to side, at my wits’ ends, and honest Mary Quince in vain endevoured to quiet and comfort me.

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Chapter XVIII: A Midnight Visitor
The frightful warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was there no escape from the dreadful companion whom fate had assigned me? I made up my mind again and again to speak to my father and urge her removal. In other things he indulged me; here, however, he met me drily and sternly, and it was plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica’s influence, and also that he had secret reasons for persisting in an opposite course. Just then I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from some country house in Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in search of that charmed name. With a peevish feeling I tossed the sheet upon the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly it was.
 After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very good-natured. She had received a note from papa. He had ‘had the impudence to forgive her for his impertinence.’ But for my sake she meant, notwithstanding this aggravation, really to pardon him; and whenever she had a disengaged week, to accept his invitation to Knowl, from whence she was resolved to whisk me off to London, where, though I was too young to be presented at Court and come out, I might yet - besides having the best masters and a good excuse for getting rid of Medusa - see a great deal that would amuse and surprise me.
 ‘Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?’ said Madame, who always knew who in the house received letters by the post, and by an intuition from whom they came.
 ‘Two letters - you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?’
 ‘Quite well, thank you, Madame.’
 Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no better. And as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she became sullen and malignant.
 That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly closed the book he had been reading, and said -
 ‘I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor Monnie; and though she’s no witch, and very wrong-headed at times, yet now and then she does say a thing that’s worth weighing. Did she ever talk to you of a time, Maud, when you are to be your own mistress?’
 ‘No,’ I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his rugged, kindly face.
 ‘Well, I thought she might - she’s a rattle, you know - always was a rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost. But that’s a subject for me, and more than once, Maud, it has puzzled me.’
 He sighed.
 ‘Come with me to the study, little Maud.’
 So, he carrying a candle, we crossed the lobby, and marched together through the passage, which at night always seemed a little awesome, darkly wainscoted, uncheered by the cross-light from the hall, which was lost at the turn, leading us away from the frequented parts of the house to that misshapen and lonely room about which the traditions of the nursery and the servants’ hall had had so many fearful stories to recount.
 I think my father had intended making some disclosure to me on reaching this room. If so, he changed his mind, or at least postponed his intention.
 He had paused before the cabinet, respecting the key of which he had given me so strict a charge, and I think he was going to explain himself more fully than he had done. But he went on, instead, to the table where his desk, always jealously locked, was placed, and having lighted the candles which stood by it, he glanced at me, and said -
 ‘You must wait a little, Maud; I shall have something to say to you. Take this candle and amuse yourself with a book meanwhile.’
 I was accustomed to obey in silence. I chose a volume of engravings, and ensconced myself in a favourite nook in which I had often passed a half-hour similarly. This was a deep recess by the fireplace, fenced on the other side by a great old escritoir. Into this I drew a stool, and, with candle and book, I placed myself snugly in the narrow chamber. Every now and then I raised my eyes and saw my father either writing or ruminating, as it seemed to me, very anxiously at his desk.
 Time wore on - a longer time than he had intended, and still he continued absorbed at his desk. Gradually I grew sleepy, and as I nodded, the book and room faded away, and pleasant little dreams began to gather round me, and so I went off into a deep slumber.
 It must have lasted long, for when I wakened my candle had burnt out; my father, having quite forgotten me, was gone, and the room was dark and deserted. I felt cold and a little stiff, and for some seconds did not know where I was.
 I had been wakened, I suppose, by a sound which I now distinctly heard, to my great terror, approaching. There was a rustling; there was a breathing. I heard a creaking upon the plank that always creaked when walked upon in the passage. I held my breath and listened, and coiled myself up in the innermost recess of my little chamber.
 Sudden and sharp, a light shone in from the nearly-closed study door. It shone angularly on the ceiling like a letter L reversed. There was a pause. Then some one knocked softly at the door, which after another pause was slowly pushed open. I expected, I think, to see the dreaded figure of the linkman. I was scarcely less frightened to see that of Madame de la Rougierre. She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she called her Chinese silk - precisely as she had been in the daytime. In fact, I do not think she had undressed. She had no shoes on. Otherwise her toilet was deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth was grimly closed, and she stood scowling into the room with a searching and pallid scrutiny, the candle held high above her head at the full stretch of her arm.
 Placed as I was in a deep recess, and in a seat hardly raised above the level of the floor, I escaped her, although it seemed to me for some seconds, as I gazed on this spectre, that our eyes actually met.
 I sat without breathing or winking, staring upon the formidable image which with upstretched arm, and the sharp lights and hard shadows thrown upon her corrugated features, looked like a sorceress watching for the effect of a spell.
 She was plainly listening intensely. Unconsciously she had drawn her lower lip altogether between her teeth, and I well remember what a deathlike and idiotic look the contortion gave her. My terror lest she should discover me amounted to positive agony. She rolled her eyes stealthily from corner to corner of the room, and listened with her neck awry at the door.
 Then to my father’s desk she went. To my great relief, her back was towards me. She stooped over it, with the candle close by; I saw her try a key - it could be nothing else - and I heard her blow through the wards to clear them.
 Then, again, she listened at the door, candle in hand, and then with long tiptoe steps came back, and papa’s desk in another moment was open, and Madame cautiously turning over the papers it contained.
 Twice or thrice she paused, glided to the door, and listened again intently with her head near the ground, and then returned and continued her search, peeping into papers one after another, tolerably methodically, and reading some quite through.
 While this felonious business was going on, I was freezing with fear lest she should accidentally look round and her eyes light on me; for I could not say what she might not do rather than have her crime discovered.
 Sometimes she would read a paper twice over; sometimes a whisper no louder than the ticking of a watch, sometimes a brief chuckle under her breath, bespoke the interest with which here and there a letter or a memorandum was read.
 For about half an hour, I think, this went on; but at the time it seemed to me all but interminable. On a sudden she raised her head and listened for a moment, replaced the papers deftly, closed the desk without noise, except for the tiny click of the lock, extinguished the candle, and rustled stealthily out of the room, leaving in the darkness the malign and hag-like face on which the candle had just shone still floating filmy in the dark.
 Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was being committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage and presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and escaped from the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back and forward under its predatory cruise.
 Not only during her presence, but for more than an hour after, I remained cowering in my hiding-place, and afraid to stir, lest she might either be lurking in the neighborhood, or return and surprise me.
 You will not be astonished, that after a night so passed I was ill and feverish in the morning. To my horror, Madame de la Rougierre came to visit me at my bedside. Not a trace of guilty consciousness of what had passed during the night was legible in her face. She had no sign of late watching, and her toilet was exemplary.
 As she sat smiling by me, full of anxious and affectionate enquiry, and smoothed the coverlet with her great felonious hand, I could quite comprehend the dreadful feeling with which the deceived husband in the Arabian Nights met his ghoul wife, after his nocturnal discovery.
 Ill as I was, I got up and found my father in that room which adjoined his bedchamber. He perceived, I am sure, by my looks, that something unusual had happened. I shut the door, and came close beside his chair.
 ‘Oh, papa, I have such a thing to tell you!’ I forgot to call him ‘Sir.’ ‘A secret; and you won’t say who told you? Will you come down to the study?’
 He looked hard at me, got up, and kissing my forehead, said - ‘Don’t be frightened, Maud; I venture to say it is a mare’s nest; at all events, my child, we will take care that no danger reaches you; come, child.’
 And by the hand he led me to the study. When the door was shut, and we had reached the far end of the room next the window, I said, but in a low tone, and holding his arm fast -
 ‘Oh, sir, you don’t know what a dreadful person we have living with us - Madame de la Rougierre, I mean. Don’t let her in if she comes; she would guess what I am telling you, and one way or another I am sure she would kill me.’
 ‘Tut, tut, child. You must know that’s nonsense,’ he said, looking pale and stern.
 ‘Oh no, papa. I am horribly frightened, and Lady Knollys thinks so too.’
 ‘Ha! I dare say; one fool makes many. We all know what Monica thinks.’
 ‘But I saw it, papa. She stole your key last night, and opened your desk, and read all your papers.’
 ‘Stole my key!’ said my father, staring at me perplexed, but at the same instant producing it. ‘Stole it! Why here it is!’
 ‘She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so long. Open it now, and see whether they have not been stirred.’
 He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but he did unlock the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously. As he did so he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections which are made with closed lips, and not always intelligible; but he made no remark.
 Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down himself, told me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I had seen. This accordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.
 ‘Did she remove any paper?’ asked my father, at the same time making a little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied might have been stolen.
 ‘No; I did not see her take anything.’
 ‘Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing to anyone - not even to your cousin Monica.’
 Directions which, coming from another person would have had no great weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest look and a weight of emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive, and I went away with the seal of silence upon my lips.
 ‘Sit down, Maud, there. You have not been very happy with Madame de la Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.’
 He rang the bell.
 ‘Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her for a few minutes here.’
 My father’s communications to her were always equally ceremonious. In a few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure, smiling, courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like the spirit of evil, presented itself.
 My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair opposite, looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at once to the point.
 ‘Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me the key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.’
 With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.
 Madame, who had expected something very different, became instantly so pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, especially when she had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer, I expected to see her fall in a fit.
 She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower, and her mouth and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion at one side.
 She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she succeeded in saying, after twice clearing her throat -
 ‘I cannot comprehend, Monsieur Ruthyn, unless you intend to insult me.’
 ‘It won’t do, Madame; I must have that false key. I give you the opportunity of surrendering it quietly here and now.’
 ‘But who dares to say I possess such thing?’ demanded Madame, who, having rallied from her momentary paralysis, was now fierce and voluble as I had often seen her before.
 ‘You know, Madame, that you can rely on what I say, and I tell you that you were seen last night visiting this room, and with a key in your possession, opening this desk, and reading my letters and papers contained in it. Unless you forthwith give me that key, and any other false keys in your possession - in which case I shall rest content with dismissing you summarily - I will take a different course. You know I am a magistrate; - and I shall have you, your boxes, and places up-stairs, searched forthwith, and I will prosecute you criminally. The thing is clear; you aggravate by denying; you must give me that key, if you please, instantly, otherwise I ring this bell, and you shall see that I mean what I say.’
 There was a little pause. He rose and extended his hand towards the bell-rope. Madame glided round the table, extended her hand to arrest his.
 ‘I will do everything, Monsieur Ruthyn - whatever you wish.’
 And with these words Madame de la Rougierre broke down altogether. She sobbed, she wept, she gabbled piteously, all manner of incomprehensible roulades of lamentation and entreaty; coyly, penitently, in a most interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast, with a string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his head and looked her in the face.
 ‘Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly to pick this lock.’
 But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had expressly bargained for; so she only fell once more into her old paroxysm of sorrow, self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.
 ‘Well,’ said my father,’ I promised that on surrendering the key you should go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall have an hour and a half to prepare in. You must then be ready to depart. I will send your money to you by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you had better not refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.’
 Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried her eyes fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away towards the door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half round, with a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip viciously as she eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened to a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful toss of her head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather sharply behind her.

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Chapter XIX: Au Revoir
Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame ‘did not like a bone in my skin.’ Instinctively I knew that she bore me no good-will, although I really believe it was her wish to make me think quite the reverse. At all events I had no desire to see Madame again before her departure, especially as she had thrown upon me one momentary glance in the study, which seemed to me charged with very peculiar feelings.
 You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a formal leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak, therefore, and stole out quietly.
 My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at this late season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the stems of old trees, and its flooring interlaced and groined with their knotted roots. Though near the house, it was a sylvan solitude; a little brook ran darkling and glimmering through it, wild strawberries and other woodland plants strewed the ground, and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made the shadow of the boughs cheery.
 I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I heard in the distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing to me that Madame de la Rougierre had fairly set out upon her travels. I thanked heaven; I could have danced and sung with delight; I heaved a great sigh and looked up through the branches to the clear blue sky.
 But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard Madame’s voice close at my ear, and her large bony hand was laid on my shoulder. We were instantly face to face - I recoiling, and for a moment speechless with fright.
 In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot, detected and overtaken with an awful instinct by my enemy, what might not be about to happen to me at that moment?
 ‘Frightened as usual, Maud,’ she said quietly, and eyeing me with a sinister smile, ‘and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat ‘av you done to injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite discover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh - is not so? Petite carogne - ah, ha, ha!’
 I was too much confounded to answer.
 ‘You see, my dear cheaile,’ she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a hideous archness at me, ‘you could not hide what you ‘av done from poor Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty little villany quite plain - you dear little diablesse.
 ‘Wat I ‘av done I ‘av no reproach of myself for it. If I could explain, your papa would say I ‘av done right, and you should thank me on your knees; but I cannot explain yet.’
 She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary pause between each, to allow its meaning to impress itself.
 ‘If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore me to remain. But no - I would not - notwithstanding your so cheerful house, your charming servants, your papa’s amusing society, and your affectionate and sincere heart, my sweet little maraude.
 ‘I am to go to London first, where I ‘av, oh, so good friends! next I will go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest Maud, wherever I may ‘appen to be, I will remember you - ah, ha! Yes; most certainly, I will remember you.
 ‘And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know everything about my charming little Maud; you will not know how, but I shall indeed, everything. And be sure, my dearest cheaile, I will some time be able to give you the sensible proofs of my gratitude and affection - you understand.
 ‘The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must go on. You did not expect to see me - here; I will appear, perhaps, as suddenly another time. It is great pleasure to us both - this opportunity to make our adieux. Farewell! my dearest little Maud. I will never cease to think of you, and of some way to recompense the kindness you ‘av shown for poor Madame.’
 My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my thumb, and shook it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on me as she held it, as if meditating mischief. Then suddenly she said -
 ‘You will always remember Madame, I think, and I will remind you of me beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as ‘appy as you deserve.’
 The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer, and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned thumb, she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her great bony ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into the perspective of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had quite disappeared in the distance.
 Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but every other face in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My energies had returned, my spirits were come again. The sunlight was happy, the flowers innocent, the songs and flutter of the birds once more gay, and all nature delightful and rejoicing.
 After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow of Madame de la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and the remembrance of her menace return with an unexpected pang of fear.
 ‘Well, if there isn’t impittens!’ cried Mrs. Rusk. ‘But never you trouble your head about it, Miss. Them sort’s all alike - you never saw a rogue yet that was found out and didn’t threaten the honest folk as he was leaving behind with all sorts; there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jervis the footman, I mind well how hard they swore all they would not do when they was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always threatens that way - them sort always does, and none ever the worse - not but she would if she could, mind ye, but there it is; she can’t do nothing but bite her nails and cuss us - not she - ha, ha, ha!’
 So I was comforted. But Madame’s evil smile, nevertheless, from time to time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a while.
 She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.
 I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cousin Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the last - the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects - I had nevertheless an occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my evil genius.
 I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the reader will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not easily understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I should have found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Things that moved me profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame, under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my childish mind an event of the vastest importance. No one was indifferent to the occurrence in the house but its master. He never alluded again to Madame de la Rougierre. But whether connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could not say, there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work in my father’s mind.
 ‘I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I have not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little more sense?’
 This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the hall; and then saying, ‘We shall see,’ he left me as abruptly as he appeared.
 Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness of Madame?
 A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw him on the terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet me as I approached.
 ‘You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I have written to Monica: in a matter of detail she is competent to advise; perhaps she will come here for a short visit.’
 I was very glad to hear this.
 ‘@You are more interested than for my time I can be, in vindicating his character.’
 ‘Whose character, sir?’ I ventured to enquire during the pause that followed.
 One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of solitude and silence was this of assuming that the context of his thoughts was legible to others, forgetting that they had not been spoken.
 ‘Whose? - your uncle Silas’s. In the course of nature he must survive me. He will then represent the family name. Would you make some sacrifice to clear that name, Maud?’
 I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.
 He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy lighting up the rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.
 ‘I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should not have been undone - ubi lapsus, quid feci. But I had almost made up my mind to change my plan, and leave all to time - edax rerum - to illuminate or to consume. But I think little Maud would like to contribute to the restitution of her family name. It may cost you something - are you willing to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there - I don’t speak of fortune, that is not involved - but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name must otherwise continue to languish?’
 ‘Oh, none - none indeed, sir - I am delighted!’
 Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.
 ‘Well, Maud, I am sure there is no risk; but you are to suppose there is. Are you still willing to accept it?’
 Again I assented.
 ‘You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come soon, and it won’t last long. But you must not let people like Monica Knollys frighten you.’
 I was lost in wonder.
 ‘If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had better recede in time - they may make the ordeal as terrible as hell itself. You have zeal - have you nerve?’ I thought in such a cause I had nerve for anything.
 ‘Well, Maud, in the course of a few months - and it may be sooner - there must be a change. I have had a letter from London this morning that assures me of that. I must then leave you for a time; in my absence be faithful to the duties that will arise. To whom much is committed, of him will much be required. You shall promise me not to mention this conversation to Monica Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot trust yourself, say so, and we will not ask her to come. Also, don’t invite her to talk about your uncle Silas - I have reasons. Do you quite understand my conditions?’
 ‘Yes, sir.’
 ‘Your uncle Silas,’ he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones that sounded from so old a man almost terrible, ‘lies under an intolerable slander. I don’t correspond with him; I don’t sympathise with him; I never quite did. He has grown religious, and that’s well; but there are things in which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what I can learn, he, the person primarily affected - the cause, though the innocent cause - of this great calamity - bears it with an easy apathy which is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no Ruthyn, under the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he ought to do, and offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would not, or did not; indeed, he never took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake - why should I?-that I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I believe - he’s meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity - a feeble visionary. I am not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage - sacred but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to perish!’
 This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before or after. He abruptly resumed -
 ‘Yes, we will, Maud - you and I - we’ll leave one proof on record, which, fairly read, will go far to convince the world.’
 He looked round, but we were alone. The garden was nearly always solitary, and few visitors ever approached the house from that side.
 ‘I have talked too long, I believe; we are children to the last. Leave me, Maud. I think I know you better than I did, and I am pleased with you. Go, child - I’ll sit here.’
 If he had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that interview. I had no idea till then how much passion still burned in that aged frame, nor how full of energy and fire that face, generally so stern and ashen, could appear. As I left him seated on the rustic chair, by the steps, the traces of that storm were still discernible on his features. His gathered brows, glowing eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the grim compression of his mouth, still showed the agitation which, somehow, in grey old age, shocks and alarms the young.

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Chapter XX: Austin Ruthyn Sets Out on His Journey
The Rev. William Fairfield, Doctor Clay’s somewhat bald curate, a mild, thin man, with a high and thin nose, who was preparing me for confirmation, came next day; and when our catechetical conference was ended, and before lunch was announced, my father sent for him to the study, where he remained until the bell rang out its summons.
  ‘We have had some interesting - I may say very interesting - conversation, your papa and I, Miss Ruthyn,’ said my reverend vis-à-vis, so soon as nature was refreshed, smiling and shining, as he leaned back in his chair, his hand upon the table, and his finger curled gently upon the stem of his wine-glass. ‘It never was your privilege, I believe, to see your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?’
 ‘No - never; he leads so retired - so very retired a life.’
 ‘Oh, no, - of course, no; but I was going to remark a likeness - I mean, of course, a family likeness - only that sort of thing - you understand - between him and the profile of Lady Margaret in the drawing-room - is not it Lady Margaret? - which you were so good as to show me on Wednesday last. There certainly is a likeness. I think you would agree with me, if you had the pleasure of seeing your uncle.’
 ‘You know him, then? I have never seen him.’
 ‘Oh dear, yes - I am happy to say, I know him very well. I have that privilege. I was for three years curate of Feltram, and I had the honour of being a pretty constant visitor at Bartram-Haugh during that, I may say, protracted period; and I think it really never has been my privilege and happiness, I may say, to enjoy the acquaintance and society of so very experienced a Christian, as my admirable friend, I may call him, Mr. Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh. I look upon him, I do assure you, quite in the light of a saint; not, of course, in the Popish sense, but in the very highest, you will understand me, which our Church allows, - a man built up in faith - full of faith - faith and grace - altogether exemplary; and I often ventured to regret, Miss Ruthyn, that Providence in its mysterious dispensations should have placed him so far apart from his brother, your respected father. His influence and opportunities would, no doubt, we may venture to hope, at least have been blessed; and, perhaps, we - my valued rector and I - might possibly have seen more of him at church, than, I deeply regret, we have done.’ He shook his head a little, as he smiled with a sad complacency on me through his blue steel spectacles, and then sipped a little meditative sherry.
 ‘And you saw a good deal of my uncle?’
 ‘Well, a good deal, Miss Ruthyn - I may say a good deal - principally at his own house. His health is wretched - miserable health - a sadly afflicted man he has been, as, no doubt, you are aware. But afflictions, my dear Miss Ruthyn, as you remember Doctor Clay so well remarked on Sunday last, though birds of ill omen, yet spiritually resemble the ravens who supplied the prophet; and when they visit the faithful, come charged with nourishment for the soul.
 ‘He is a good deal embarrassed pecuniarily, I should say,’ continued the curate, who was rather a good man than a very well-bred one. ‘He found a difficulty - in fact it was not in his power - to subscribe generally to our little funds, and - and objects, and I used to say to him, and I really felt it, that it was more gratifying, such were his feeling and his power of expression, to be refused by him than assisted by others.’
 ‘Did papa wish you to speak to me about my uncle?’ I enquired, as a sudden thought struck me; and then I felt half ashamed of my question.
 He looked surprised.
 ‘No, Miss Ruthyn, certainly not. Oh dear, no. It was merely a conversation between Mr. Ruthyn and me. He never suggested my opening that, or indeed any other point in my interview with you, Miss Ruthyn - not the least.’
 ‘I was not aware before that Uncle Silas was so religious.’
 He smiled tranquilly, not quite up to the ceiling, but gently upward, and shook his head in pity for my previous ignorance, as he lowered his eyes -
 ‘I don’t say that there may not be some little matters in a few points of doctrine which we could, perhaps, wish otherwise. But these, you know, are speculative, and in all essentials he is Church - not in the perverted modern sense; far from it - unexceptionably Church, strictly so. Would there were more among us of the same mind that is in him! Ay, Miss Ruthyn, even in the highest places of the Church herself.’
 The Rev. William Fairfield, while fighting against the Dissenters with his right hand, was, with his left, hotly engaged with the Tractarians. A good man I am sure he was, and I dare say sound in doctrine, though naturally, I think, not very wise. This conversation with him gave me new ideas about my uncle Silas. It quite agreed with what my father had said. These principles and his increasing years would necessarily quiet the turbulence of his resistance to injustice, and teach him to acquiesce in his fate.
 You would have fancied that one so young as I, born to wealth so vast, and living a life of such entire seclusion, would have been exempt from care. But you have seen how troubled my life was with fear and anxiety during the residence of Madame de la Rougierre, and now there rested upon my mind a vague and awful anticipation of the trial which my father had announced, without defining it.
 An ‘ordeal’ he called it, requiring not only zeal but nerve, which might possibly, were my courage to fail, become frightful, and even intolerable. What, and of what nature, could it be? Not designed to vindicate the fair fame of the meek and submissive old man - who, it seemed, had ceased to care for his bygone wrongs, and was looking to futurity - but the reputation of our ancient family.
 Sometimes I repented my temerity in having undertaken it. I distrusted my courage. Had I not better retreat, while it was yet time? But there was shame and even difficulty in the thought. How should I appear before my father? Was it not important - had I not deliberately undertaken it - and was I not bound in conscience? Perhaps he had already taken steps in the matter which committed him. Besides, was I sure that, even were I free again, I would not once more devote myself to the trial, be it what it might? You perceive I had more spirit than courage. I think I had the mental attributes of courage; but then I was but a hysterical girl, and in so far neither more nor less than a coward.
 No wonder I distrusted myself; no wonder also my will stood out against my timidity. It was a struggle, then; a proud, wild resolve against constitutional cowardice.
 Those who have ever had cast upon them more than their strength seemed framed to bear - the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous and self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve - will understand the kind of agony which I sometimes endured.
 But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that I must be exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain at least, if my father believed it attended with real peril, he would never have wished to see me involved in it. But the silence under which I was bound was terrifying - double so when the danger was so shapeless and undivulged.
 I was soon to understand it all - soon, too, to know all about my father’s impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why guarded from me with so awful a mystery.
 That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady Knollys. She was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days’ time. I thought my father would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and dejected.
 ‘One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for you - yes, thank God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a month or two; I may be going then, and would be glad - provided she talks about suitable things - very glad, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.’
 There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day. He had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in our interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something painful, perhaps even terrible, in the circumstances of the journey he was about to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance past, and he returned.
 That night my father bid me good-night early and went upstairs. After I had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was not usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But they were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary direction, and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.
 Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the gallery to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all must therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a throbbing at my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening and fancying footsteps.
 I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few minutes, Mrs. Rusk’s energetic step passed along the gallery; and, listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father’s voice and hers in dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart, leaning with my elbow on my pillow.
 Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping at my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my visitor with -
 ‘Who’s there?’
 ‘It’s only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?’
 ‘Is papa ill?’
 ‘Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there’s a little black book as I took for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one, C, 15; but I can’t read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss - I suspeck my eyes is a-going.’
 I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books, as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.
 I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs. Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me: - ‘Mary, do you hear? what is it? It is something dreadful.’
 The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst through the top of the window, and shook the whole house with his descent. I found myself standing at my own door, crying, ‘Help, help! murder! murder!’ and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.
 I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most horrible, for Mrs. Rusk’s screams pealed one after the other unabated, though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by this time the bells of my father’s room were ringing madly.
 ‘They are trying to murder him!’ I cried, and I ran along the gallery to his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white face I shall never forget, though her entreaties only sounded like unmeaning noises in my ears.
 ‘Here! help, help, help!’ I cried, trying to force open the door.
 ‘Shove it, shove it, for God’s sake! he’s across it,’ cried Mrs. Rusk’s voice from within; ‘drive it in. I can’t move him.’
 I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard steps approaching. The men were running to the spot, and shouting as they did so -
 ‘Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;’ and the like.
 We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to be seen. We listened, however, at my open door.
 Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs. Rusk’s voice subsided to a sort of wailing; the men were talking all together, and I suppose the door opened, for I heard some of the voices, on a sudden, as if in the room; and then came a strange lull, and talking in very low tones, and not much even of that.
 ‘What is it, Mary? what can it be?’ I ejaculated, not knowing what horror to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about my shoulders, I called loudly and imploringly, in my horror, to know what had happened.
 But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged in some absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy body being moved.
 Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a spectre, and putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said - ‘Now, Miss Maud, darling, you must go back again; ’tisn’t no place for you; you’ll see all, my darling, time enough - you will. There now, there, like a dear, do get into your room.’
 What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father’s chamber? It was the visitor whom we had so long expected, with whom he was to make the unknown journey, leaving me alone. The intruder was Death!