reamed Madame, exerting her superior
strength to force me back.

But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach, and, strung
to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her, and beat the window
wildly with my hands, screaming--

'Save me--save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin, oh! save me!'

Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going on. A
window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the carriage. The
Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a fury, as if she could have
murdered me.

Nothing daunted--frantic--I screamed in my despair, seeing the carriage
drive swiftly away--seeing Cousin Monica's bonnet, as she sat chatting with
her _vis-a-vis_.

'Oh, oh, oh!' I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as Madame, exerting
her strength and matching her fury against my despair, forced me back in
spite of my wild struggles, and pushed me sitting on the bed, where she
held me fast, glaring in my face, and chuckling and panting over me.

I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.

I remember the face of poor Mary Quince--its horror, its wonder--as she
stood gaping into my face, over Madame's shoulder, and crying--

'What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?' And turning fiercely on Madame,
and striving to force her grasp from my wrists, 'Are you hurting the child?
Let her go--let her go.'

'I _weel_ let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She is mad, I
think. She 'as lost hair head.'

'Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!' I cried.

Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing in sight.

'Why don't a you stop the carriage?' sneered Madame. 'Call a the coachman
and the postilion. W'ere is the footman? Bah! _elle a le cerveau mal
timbre_.'

'Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone--is it gone? Is there nothing there?' cried I,
rushing to the window; and turning to Madame, after a vain straining of my
eyes, my face against the glass--

'Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this? What was it to
you? Why do you persecute me? What good _can_ you gain by my ruin?'

'Rueen! Par bleu! ma chere, you talk too fast. Did not a you see it, Mary
Queence? It was the doctor's carriage, and Mrs. Jolks, and that eempudent
faylow, young Jolks, staring up to the window, and Mademoiselle she come in
soche shocking deshabille to show herself knocking at the window. 'Twould
be very nice thing, Mary Queence, don't you think?'

I