My cousin's conduct may appear to have been an inadequate cause for
such serious uneasiness; but my alarm was caused neither by his acts
nor words, but entirely by his manner, which was strange and even
intimidating to excess. At the beginning of yesterday's interview there
was a sort of bullying swagger in his air, which towards the close gave
place to the brutal vehemence of an undisguised ruffian--a transition
which had tempted me into a belief that he might seek even forcibly
to extort from me a consent to his wishes, or by means still more
horrible, of which I scarcely dared to trust myself to think, to possess
himself of my property. I was early next day summoned to attend my uncle in his private room,
which lay in a corner turret of the old building; and thither I
accordingly went, wondering all the way what this unusual measure might
prelude. When I entered the room, he did not rise in his usual courteous
way to greet me, but simply pointed to a chair opposite to his own. This
boded nothing agreeable. I sat down, however, silently waiting until he
should open the conversation. "Lady Margaret," at length he said, in a tone of greater sternness than
I had thought him capable of using, "I have hitherto spoken to you as a
friend, but I have not forgotten that I am also your guardian, and that
my authority as such gives me a right to control your conduct. I shall
put a question to you, and I expect and will demand a plain, direct
answer. Have I rightly been informed that you have contemptuously
rejected the suit and hand of my son Edward?" I stammered forth with a good deal of trepidation:

"I believe--that is, I have, sir, rejected my cousin's proposals; and my
coldness and discouragement might have convinced him that I had
determined to do so." "Madam," replied he, with suppressed, but, as it appeared to me,
intense anger, "I have lived long enough to know that coldness and
discouragement, and such terms, form the common cant of a worthless
coquette. You know to the full, as well as I, that _coldness and
discouragement_ may be so exhibited as to convince their object that he
is neither distasteful nor indifferent to the person who wears this
manner. You know, too, none better, that an affected neglect, when
skilfully managed, is amongst the most formidable of the engines which
artful beauty can employ. I tell you, madam, that having, without one
word spoken in discouragement, permitted my son's most marked attentions
for a twelvemonth or more, you have no right to dismiss him with no
further explanation than demurely telling him that you had always looked
coldly upon him; and neither your wealth nor your _ladyship_" (there was
an emphasis of scorn on the word, which would have become Sir Giles
Overreach himself) "can warrant you in treating with contempt the
affectionate regard of an honest heart." I was too much shocked at this undisguised attempt to bully me into an
acquiescence in the interested and unprincipled plan for their own
aggrandizement, which I now perceived my uncle and his son to have
deliberately entered into, at once to find strength or collectedness to
frame an answer to what he had said. At length I replied, with some
firmness:

"In all that you have just now said, sir, you have grossly misstated my
conduct and motives. Your information must have been most incorrect as
far as it regards my conduct towards my cousin; my manner towards him
could have conveyed nothing but dislike; and if anything could have
added to the strong aversion which I have long felt towards him, it
would be his attempting thus to trick and frighten me into a marriage
which he knows to be revolting to me, and which is sought by him only as
a means for securing to himself whatever property is mine." As I said this, I fixed my eyes upon those of my uncle, but he was too
old in the world's ways to falter beneath the gaze of more searching
eyes than mine; he simply said:

"Are you acquainted with the provisions of your father's will?" I answered in the affirmative; and he continued:

"Then you must be aware that if my son Edward were--which God
forbid--the unprincipled, reckless man you pretend to think him"--(here
he spoke very slowly, as if he intended that every word which escaped
him should be registered in my memory, while at the same time the
expression of his countenance underwent a gradual but horrible change,
and the eyes which he fixed upon me became so darkly vivid, that I
almost lost sight of everything else)--"if he were what you have
described him, think you, girl, he could find no briefer means than
wedding contracts to gain his ends? 'twas but to gripe your slender neck
until the breath had stopped, and lands, and lakes, and all were his." [Illustration: "TWAS BUT TO GRIPE YOUR SLENDER NECK UNTIL THE BREATH HAD
STOPPED."] I stood staring at him for many minutes after he had ceased to speak,
fascinated by the terrible serpent-like gaze, until he continued with a
welcome change of countenance:

"I will not speak again to you upon this topic until one month has
passed. You shall have time to consider the relative advantages of the
two courses which are open to you. I should be sorry to hurry you to
a decision. I am satisfied with having stated my feelings upon the
subject, and pointed out to you the path of duty. Remember this day
month--not one word sooner." He then rose, and I left the room, much agitated and exhausted. This interview, all the circumstances attending it, but most
particularly the formidable expression of my uncle's countenance while
he talked, though hypothetically, of murder, combined to arouse all my
worst suspicions of him. I dreaded to look upon the face that had so
recently worn the appalling livery of guilt and malignity. I regarded it
with the mingled fear and loathing with which one looks upon an object
which has tortured them in a nightmare. In a few days after the interview, the particulars of which I have just
related, I found a note upon my toilet-table, and on opening it I read
as follows:


"MY DEAR LADY MARGARET,

"You will be perhaps surprised to see a strange face in your room
to-day. I have dismissed your Irish maid, and secured a French one to
wait upon you--a step rendered necessary by my proposing shortly to
visit the Continent, with all my family. "Your faithful guardian,
      "ARTHUR T----N."


On inquiry, I found that my faithful attendant was actually gone, and
far on her way to the town of Galway; and in her stead there appeared
a tall, raw-boned, ill-looking, elderly Frenchwoman, whose sullen and
presuming manners seemed to imply that her vocation had never before
been that of a lady's maid. I could not help regarding her as a creature
of my uncle's, and therefore to be dreaded, even had she been in no
other way suspicious. Days and weeks passed away without any, even a momentary doubt upon my
part, as to the course to be pursued by me.