_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.