'Why do you say that, Maud?'
'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'
'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking—it was quite an accident. The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting him—no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could understand him—that's all.'
'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to be silent.'
'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me—not quite, but something like it; and I don't know the meaning of it.'
And she looked enquiringly at me.
'You are not to be alarmed about your uncle Silas, because your being afraid would unfit you for an important service which you have undertaken for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which, although it is quite passive, would be made very sad if illusory fears were allowed to steal into your mind.'
She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting, which she had found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose, which she quoted from it.
'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this service may be?' she enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my courage.'