"Nothing; not a word, madam: what should she? I tell you mind and speech were both all but gone. She rambled on about the old days and the anonymous letter and I couldn't follow her even in that, but she said nothing else."
All was right then. The old will and the old arrogance reasserted themselves; madam was herself again.
"Miss Adair goes back to Mrs. Cumberland's to-night," said she. "I do not receive her, or permit her to remain here."
"What?" cried Mr. North; and Richard, who had just entered, stood still to listen. "Why not, madam?"
"Because I do not choose to," said madam. "That's why."
"Madam, I wouldn't do it for the world. Send her back to the house with the dead lying in it, and where she'd have no protector! I couldn't do it. She's but a young thing. The neighbours would cry shame upon me."
"She goes back at once," spoke madam in her most decisive tones. "The carriage may take her, as it rains; but back she goes."
"It can't be, madam, it can't, indeed. I'm her guardian, now, and responsible for her. I promised that she should stay at Dallory Hall."
And madam went forth with into another of her furious rages; she stamped and shook with passion. Not at being thwarted: her will was always law, and she intended it to be so now; but at Mr. North's attempting to oppose it.
"You were a fool for bringing her at all, knowing as you might that I should not allow her to stay here," raved madam. "The hall is mine: so long as I am mistress of it, no girl that I don't choose to receive shall find admittance here. She goes lack at once."