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 might do so.  The morning after, I was told I must write to Lady Knollys to ask if I might go to her, as there was shortly to be an execution in the house.

I met Dudley on my way through the hall.  He spoke oddly about his father, and made a very strange proposal to me—­that I should give him my written promise for twenty thousand pounds, and he would “take me cleverly out o’ Bartram-Haugh and put me wi’ my cousin Knollys!”

I refused indignantly, but he caught me by the wrist.

“Don’t ye be a-flyin’ out,” he said peremptorily.  “Take it or leave it—­on or off!  Can’t ye speak wi’ common sense for once?  I’ll take ye out o’ all this, if you’ll gi’e me what I say.”

He looked black when I refused again.  I judged it best to tell my uncle of his offer.  He was startled, but made what excuse he could, smiling askance, a pale, peaked smile that haunted me.  And then, once more, entering an unfrequented room, I came upon the great bony figure of Madame de la Rougierre.  She was to be my companion for a week or two, I was told, and shortly after her coming I found my walks curtailed.  I wrote again to my Cousin Knollys, imploring her to take me away.  This letter my uncle intercepted, and when she came in reply to my former letter, I had but the sight of her carriage driving swiftly away.