"Hallo, Maddy," said her father, "what's this? You're nervous, my darling! I knew you were not well. Has anything fretted you?--Has anything vexed her, Muriel?"

"No, papa, nothing; nothing at all," said Madeleine, making a strong effort to recover herself. "I have got hold of a sorrowful book, that's all."

"Have you, my dear? then put it away. Let's look at it. Why, it's Pickwick, I declare! Maddy, what can all you? How could you possibly cry over anything in Pickwick?"

"I don't know that, sir," said Ramsay, jauntily and jovially coming to Madeleine's assistance, without the faintest notion of anything beyond her being "badgered by the governor." "There's the dying clown, you know, and the queer client. I've cried over them myself; or at least I've been very near it," And he sat down beside Madeleine, and applied himself with success to rousing and amusing her. Ronald said nothing, and very soon went away.

"I'm determined on one thing, Muriel," said Kilsyth to his wife when they were alone; "I'll have a long talk with Wilmot before he goes, and get the fullest instructions from him about Madeleine. I have no confidence in anyone else in her case, and I'll write to Wilmot about it, and ask him to come here professionally, as soon as he can, the first thing to-morrow morning."

[CHAPTER II.]

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Another Turn of the Screw.

If the interview which had taken place between Chudleigh Wilmot and Henrietta Prendergast had had unfortunate results for the one, it had been proportionably, if not equally, unpleasant to the other. It was impossible that Henrietta could have sustained a more complete discouragement, a more telling and unmistakable defeat, than she felt had befallen her when, after Wilmot had left her, she went over every point of their conversation, and considered the interview in every possible aspect. She had at once, or at least at a very early stage, discerned that some fresh disturbing cause existed in Wilmot's mind. She had seen him, on the memorable occasion of their first interview after his wife's death, horrified, confounded, and unfeignedly distressed. However little he had loved his wife, however passing and shallow the impression made upon him by the sudden and untimely event might prove--and Mrs. Prendergast was prepared to find it prove shallow and passing--it had been real, single, intelligible. He had received the painful communication which she had been charged to make to him with surprise, with sorrow--no doubt, in his secret soul, with bitter, regretful, vain remorse. She could only surmise this part of his feelings. He had not departed from the manly reticence which she had expected from him, and for which she admired him; but she never doubted that he had experienced such remorse,--vain, bitter, and regretful.

All the information which had drifted to her knowledge since--and though she was not a distinctly curious or mean-natured woman, Mrs. Prendergast was not above cultivating and maintaining friendly relations with Dr. Wilmot's household, to all of whom she was as well known, and had been nearly as important, as their late mistress--confirmed her in the belief that the conduct of the suddenly-bereaved husband had been all that propriety, good feeling, good taste, and good sense could possibly require. She bad not precisely defined in her imagination what it was that she looked for and expected in the interview which Wilmot had requested, with a little too much formality, certainly, to be reassuring with regard to any notions she might possibly have entertained with respect to the freedom and intimacy of their future relations. But she did not suffer herself to dwell on that matter of the formality. It was not unnatural; there are persons, she knew, to whom that sort of thing seems proper when a death--what may be called an intimate death, that is to say--has taken place, who change all their ways and manners for a time, just as they put on mourning and use lugubrious stationery. It was not very like what she would have expected of Wilmot, to enrol himself in the number of these formalists; but she did not allow the circumstance to impress her disagreeably. She possessed patience in as marked a degree as she possessed intelligence--patience, a much rarer and nearly as valuable a quality--and she was satisfied to wait until time should enable her to arrive at the free and frequent association with Wilmot, which was the first step to the end she had in view, and meant to keep in view. She was perfectly clear upon that point; none the leas clear that she did not discuss it in her own thoughts, or ponder over it; but she laid it quietly aside, to be produced and acted on when it should be required.