time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits
sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by
the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration
from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a
while.

She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave
her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.

I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cousin
Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and
whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the
last--the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects--I had nevertheless an
occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we
should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my evil genius.

I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the reader
will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not easily
understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I should have
found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Things that moved me
profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame,
under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my childish mind an
event of the vastest importance. No one was indifferent to the occurrence
in the house but its master. He never alluded again to Madame de la
Rougierre. But whether connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could
not say, there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work in my
father's mind.

'I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I have
not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little more