long white
morning-gown, slid over the end of the bed and stood behind me with a
deathlike scowl and simper. Diving over my shoulder, with his long, thin
hand he snatched the Bible from me, and whispered over my head, "The
serpent beguiled her, and she did eat."

It seemed an hour before Wyat came back. You may be sure I did not
prolong my watch. I had a long, hysterical fit of weeping when I got to
my room: the sorceries of Bartram-Haugh were enveloping.

About this time Dudley began to persecute me with his odious attentions.
I was obliged to complain of him to my uncle. He was disposed to think
well of the match; but I could not consent, and it was arranged that my
cousin should go abroad. And then that night I had the key to some of
the mysterious doings at Bartram-Haugh--the comings and goings in the
darkness which had so often startled me--the face of Madame de la
Rougierre peeped into the room.

_III.--A Night of Terror_

Shortly afterwards I lost Milly, who was sent to a French school, where
I was to follow her in three months. I bade her farewell at the end of
Windmill Wood, and was sitting on the trunk of a tree when Meg Hawkes, a
girl to whom I had once been kind, passed by.

"Don't ye speak, nor look; fayther spies us," she said quickly. "Don't
ye be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere, for the world's sake!"

The injunction was so startling that I had many an hour of anxious
conjecture, and many a horrible vigil by night. But ten days later I was
summoned to my uncle's room. He implored me once more to wed Dudley--to
listen to the appeal of an old and broken-hearted man.

"You see my suspense--my miserable and frightful suspense," he said.
"I'm very miserable, nearly desperate. I stand before you in the
attitude of a suppliant."

"Oh, I must--I must--I _must_ say no!" I cried. "Don't question me,
don't press me. I could not--I _could_ not do what you ask!"

"I yield, Maud--I yield, my dear. I will _not_ press you. I have spoken
to you frankly, perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak
out and plead, even with the most obdurate and cruel!"

He shut the door, not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought
I heard a cry.

The discovery that Dudley was already married spared me further
importunity. I was anxious to relieve my uncle's necessities, which, I
knew were pressing; and the attorney from Feltram was up with him all
night, trying in vain to devise some means by which I