Uncle Silas was terribly ill when we returned to Bartram-Haugh, the result of an overdose of opium; but for the doctor's aid he would have died. Remembering how desperate Lady Knollys had told me his monetary position was, a new and dreadful suspicion began to haunt me.
"Had he attempted to poison himself?"
I remember I was left alone with him while his attendant fetched a fresh candle. A small thick Bible lay on the mantle-shelf. I turned over its leaves, and lighted on two or three odd-looking papers--promissory notes, I believe--when Uncle Silas, dressed in a long white morning-gown, slid over the end of the bed and stood behind me with a deathlike scowl and simper. Diving over my shoulder, with his long, thin hand he snatched the Bible from me, and whispered over my head, "The serpent beguiled her, and she did eat."
It seemed an hour before Wyat came back. You may be sure I did not prolong my watch. I had a long, hysterical fit of weeping when I got to my room: the sorceries of Bartram-Haugh were enveloping.
About this time Dudley began to persecute me with his odious attentions. I was obliged to complain of him to my uncle. He was disposed to think well of the match; but I could not consent, and it was arranged that my cousin should go abroad. And then that night I had the key to some of the mysterious doings at Bartram-Haugh--the comings and goings in the darkness which had so often startled me--the face of Madame de la Rougierre peeped into the room.
III.--A Night of Terror
Shortly afterwards I lost Milly, who was sent to a French school, where I was to follow her in three months. I bade her farewell at the end of Windmill Wood, and was sitting on the trunk of a tree when Meg Hawkes, a girl to whom I had once been kind, passed by.
"Don't ye speak, nor look; fayther spies us," she said quickly. "Don't ye be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere, for the world's sake!"
The injunction was so startling that I had many an hour of anxious conjecture, and many a horrible vigil by night. But ten days later I was summoned to my uncle's room. He implored me once more to wed Dudley--to listen to the appeal of an old and broken-hearted man.
"You see my suspense--my miserable and frightful suspense," he said. "I'm very miserable, nearly desperate. I stand before you in the attitude of a suppliant."