I should be sorry to hurry you to
a decision. I am satisfied with having stated my feelings upon the
subject, and pointed out to you the path of duty. Remember this day
month; not one word sooner."
He then rose, and I left the room, much agitated and exhausted.
This interview, all the circumstances attending it, but most
particularly the formidable expression of my uncle's countenance while
he talked, though hypothetically, of _murder_, combined to arouse all
my worst suspicions of him. I dreaded to look upon the face that
had so recently worn the appalling livery of guilt and malignity. I
regarded it with the mingled fear and loathing with which one looks
upon an object which has tortured them in a night-mare.
In a few days after the interview, the particulars of which I have
just detailed, I found a note upon my toilet-table, and on opening it
I read as follows:--
"_My Dear Lady Margaret_,
You will be, perhaps, surprised to see a strange face in your room
today. I have dismissed your Irish maid, and secured a French one to
wait upon you; a step rendered necessary by my proposing shortly to
visit the Continent with all my family.
Your faithful guardian, "_ARTHUR TYRELL_."
On inquiry, I found that my faithful attendant was actually gone, and
far on her way to the town of Galway; and in her stead there appeared
a tall, raw-boned, ill-looking, elderly Frenchwoman, whose sullen and
presuming manners seemed to imply that her vocation had never before
been that of a lady's-maid.
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