"She won't understand," he whispered, "no, she won't. Will she? They are easily frightened--ay, they are. I'd better do it another way, and she'll not suspect--she'll not suppose. See, child?" he said, after a second or two. "Remember this key."
It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.
"It opens that." And he tapped sharply on the door of a cabinet. "You will tell nobody what I have said, under pain of my displeasure."
"Oh, no, sir!"
"Good child! Except under one contingency. That is, in case I should be absent and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman in spectacles and a black wig, who spent three days here last month?--should come and enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence."
"But you will then be absent, sir," I said. "How am I to find the key?"
"True, child. I am glad you are so wise. That, you will find, I have provided for. I have a very sure friend--a friend whom I once misunderstood, but now appreciate."
I wondered silently whether it would be Uncle Silas.
"He'll make me a call some day soon, and I must make a little journey with him. He's not to be denied; I have no choice. But on the whole I rather like it. Remember, I say, I rather like it."
I think it was about a fortnight after this conversation that I was one night sitting in the great drawing-room window, when on a sudden, on the grass before me stood an odd figure--a very tall woman in grey draperies, courtesying rather fantastically, smiling very unpleasantly on me, and gabbling and cackling shrilly--I could not distinctly hear what--and gesticulating oddly with her long arms and hands. This was Madame de la Rougierre, my new governess.