I should see you before you leave for
your short stay in France. He thinks you must leave before a fortnight. I
am thinking of asking you to come over here; I know you would be just as
well at Elverston as in France; but perhaps, as he seems disposed to do
what we all wish, it may be safer to let him set about it in his own way.
The truth is, I have so set my heart upon it that I fear to risk it by
crossing him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early day next week,
and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit than he defined.
I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to think that there is no
use in trying to control events, and that things often turn out best, and
most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to themselves. I think
it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of _waiting_ so much. In high
spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever
your affectionate cousin,

MONICA.'

Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however, began
to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by total
eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent with many
well-established and awful incongruities, and their wrecks lay strown over
the troubled waters of the gulf into which I gazed.

Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about the place? Why was I a
prisoner within the walls? What were those dangers which Meg Hawkes seemed
to think so great and so imminent as to induce her to risk her lover's
safety for my deliverance? All these menacing facts stood grouped together
against the dark certainty that never were men more deeply interested in
making away with one human being, than were Uncle Silas and Dudley in
removing me.

Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul. Sometimes,
reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would clear, and my terrors
melt away like nightmares in the morning. I never repented, however, that
I had sent my letter by Tom Brice. Escape from Bartram-Haugh was my hourly
longing.

That evening Madame invited herself to tea with me. I did not object.
It was better just then to be on friendly relations with everybody, if
possible, even on their own terms. She was in one of her boisterous and
hilarious moods, and there was a perfume of brandy.

She narrated some compliments paid her that morning in Feltram by that
'good crayature' Mrs. Litheways, the silk-mercer, and what ''a