, on this one subject,
I entreat, be silent; its discussion can effect nothing now. I was wrong,
and frankly ask you to forget my mistake.'

I had been on the point of writing to Lady Knollys on this odious subject,
when, happily, it was set at rest by the disclosure of yesterday; and being
so, I could have no difficulty in acceding to my uncle's request. He was
conceding so much that I could not withhold so trifling a concession in
return.

'I hope Monica will continue to be kind to poor Milly after I am gone.'

Here there were a few seconds of meditation.

'Maud, you will not, I think, refuse to convey the substance of what I
have just said in a letter to Lady Knollys, and perhaps you would have
no objection to let me see it when it is written. It will prevent the
possibility of its containing any misconception of what I have just spoken:
and, Maud, you won't forget to say whether I have been kind. It would be
a satisfaction to me to know that Monica was assured that I never either
teased or bullied my young ward.'

With these words he dismissed me; and forthwith I completed such a letter
as would quite embody what he had said; and in my own glowing terms,
being in high good-humour with Uncle Silas, recorded my estimate of his
gentleness and good-nature; and when I submitted it to him, he expressed
his admiration of what he was pleased to call my cleverness in so exactly
conveying what he wished, and his gratitude for the handsome terms in which
I had spoken of my old guardian.

CHAPTER LIII

_AN ODD PROPOSAL_

As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered the
hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley's emerging from the
vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his
travelling costume--a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler
in folds about his throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap sticking
out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle's
room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders to the
wall, like a mummy in a museum.

I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall,
in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the
opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.

But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval; for when I
glanced in that direction again he had moved toward us, and stood in the
hall with his hat in his ha