When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his eyes slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction, he whispered—­

‘God’s will be done.’

I thought he was upon the point of fainting—­a clay tint darkened the white of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.

I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old man—­he still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.

‘Shall I go, sir?’ I at length found courage to whisper.

‘Go?’ he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream of cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.

’Go?—­oh!—­a—­yes—­yes, Maud—­go.  I must see poor Dudley before his departure,’ he added, as it were, in soliloquy.

Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided quickly and noiselessly from the room.

Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending to dust the carved door-case.  She frowned a stare of enquiry over her shrunken arm on me, as I passed.  Milly, who had been on the watch, ran and met me.  We heard my uncle’s voice, as I shut the door, calling Dudley.  He had been waiting, probably, in the adjoining room.  I hurried into my chamber, with Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief in tears, as that of girlhood naturally does.

A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking, I thought, very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his luggage lay, and drive away from Bartram.

I began to take comfort.  His departure was an inexpressible relief.  His final departure! a distant journey!

We had tea in Milly’s room that night.  Firelight and candles are inspiring.  In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe, as well as more comfortable, than in the daylight—­quite irrationally, for we know the night is the appointed day of such as love the darkness better than light, and evil walks thereby.  But so it is.  Perhaps the very consciousness of external danger enhances the enjoyment of the well-lighted interior, just as the storm does that roars and hurtles over the roof.

While Milly and I were talking, very cosily, a knock came to the room-door, and, without waiting for an invitation to enter, old Wyat came in, and glowering at us, with her brown claw upon the door-handle, she said to Milly—­

‘Ye must leave your funnin’, Miss Milly, and take your turn in your father’s room.’

‘Is he ill?’ I asked.

She answered, addressing not me, but Milly—­

’A wrought two hours in a fit arter Master Dudley went.  ’Twill be the death o’ him, I’m thinkin’, poor old fellah.  I wor sorry myself when I saw Master Dudley a going off in the moist to-day, poor fellah.  There’s trouble enough in the family without a’ that; but ‘twon’t be a family long, I’m thinkin’.  Nout but trouble, nout but trouble, since late changes came.’