‘But your uncle weel bring you back there,’ said Madame, drily.

‘It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,’ I said.

‘Ah!’ said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, ’you theenk I hate you.  You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud.  I am, on the contrary, very much interested for you—­I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.’

And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon the back of mine.  I looked up in her face.  She was not smiling.  On the contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before, and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.

I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but this lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still.

’Suppose I should bring you to Lady Knollys, and place you in her charge, what would a you do then for poor Madame?’ said this dark spectre.

I was inwardly startled at these words.  I looked into her unsearchable face, but could draw thence nothing but fear.  Had she made the same overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my fortune.  But circumstances were altered.  I was no longer in the panic of despair.  The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and my profound distrust of her was uppermost.  I saw before me only a tempter and betrayer, and said—­

’Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not to be trusted, and that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are really willing to aid me in doing so?’

This, you see, was turning the tables upon her.  I looked her steadily in the face as I spoke.  She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a gape, which haunted me long after; and it seemed as we sat in utter silence that each was rather horribly fascinated by the other’s gaze.

At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyes me with a more determined and meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone—­

‘I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little thing.’

’Wisdom is not cunning, Madame; nor is it wicked to ask your meaning in explicit language,’ I replied.

’And so, you clever cheaile, we two sit here, playing at a game of chess, over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the other—­is it not so?’

‘I will not allow you to destroy me,’ I retorted, with a sudden flash.

Madame stood up, and rubbed her mouth with her open hand.  She looked to me like some evil being seen in a dream.  I was frightened.

‘You are going to hurt me!’ I ejaculated, scarce knowing what I said.

’If I were, you deserve it.  You are very malicious, ma chere:  or, it may be, only very stupid.’

A knock came to the door.

‘Come in,’ I cried, with a glad sense of relief.