If it had been possible for that gray face to have turned grayer or
paler, it would have done so as Edith uttered these words. Wiggins
fixed his solemn eyes on her, and their glance had something in it which
was almost awful. After a moment he slowly passed his thin hand over his
brow, frowned, and looked away. Then he murmured, in a low voice, as if
to himself,

"The girl's mad!"

Edith heard these words, and for a moment thought Wiggins himself must
be mad; but his calmness and cold constraint looked too much like sober
sense. She herself had her own dark and gloomy feelings, and these
glowed in her heart with a fervid fire--too fervid, indeed, to admit of
utterance. She too had to put upon herself a constraint to keep back
the words, glowing with hot wrath and fervid indignation, which she
could have flung upon her father's betrayer. But because words were
weak, and because such deeds as his had to be repaid by act and in kind,
she forbore.

"It is necessary," said Wiggins at length, "to live here in seclusion
for a time. You will gradually become accustomed to it, and it will be
all for the best. It may not be for so very long, after all--perhaps not
more than one year. Perhaps you may eventually be admitted to--to our
purposes."

"This," said Edith, "is childish. What you mean I do not know, nor do I
care to. You seem to hint at seclusion. I do not feel inclined for
society, but a seclusion of your making is not to my taste. You must
yourself go elsewhere to seek this seclusion. This is mine, and here I