’I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?

’"Certainly not before five o’clock.”  He thought we should probably meet her on our way back to Elverston; but could not be certain, as she might have changed her plans.

’So then came—­no more remaining to be said—­a very affectionate parting.  I believe all about his legal dangers was strictly true.  How he could, unless that horrid woman had deceived him, with so serene a countenance tell me all those gross untruths about Maud, I can only admire.’

In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither and thither, whispering sometimes, listening at others, I suddenly startled them both by saying—­

‘Whose carriage?’

‘What carriage, dear?’ inquired Quince, whose ears were not so sharp as mine.

Madame peeped from the window.

‘’Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks.  He is come to see your uncle, my dear,’ said Madame.

‘But I hear a female voice,’ I said, sitting up.

‘No, my dear; there is only the doctor,’ said Madame.  ’He is come to your uncle.  I tell you he is getting out of his carriage,’ and she affected to watch the doctor’s descent.

‘The carriage is driving away!’ I cried.

‘Yes, it is draiving away,’ she echoed.

But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her shoulder, before she perceived me.

‘It is Lady Knollys!’ I screamed, seizing the window-frame to force it up, and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried—­

‘I’m here, Cousin Monica.  For God’s sake, Cousin Monica—­Cousin Monica!’

‘You are mad, Meess—­go back,’ screamed 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.’