'We are at Bartram-Haugh!' I repeated, in utter consternation. 'How was this done?'
I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis dances in which she excelled.
'It is a mistake—is it? What is it?'
'All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover, as all philosophers know.'
I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure, and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this.
'Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your fidelity and intelligence. But to me it seems that his money has been ill-spent, and his directions anything but well observed.'
'Ah, ha! Never mind; I think he will forgive me,' laughed Madame.
Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpowering sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian directions of her superior.
'You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders?'