Mrs. Abercarne professed herself completely satisfied with this explanation, and affected, out of courtesy, to applaud Mr. Bradfield’s humanity in keeping him under his own roof. But when she and her daughter were alone again, safe in their own room, the elderly lady turned the key hastily, and confided her fears to her daughter in a tremulous whisper. “It’s all very well for Mr. Bradfield to say this lunatic’s harmless,” she said, close to her daughter’s ear, “but I don’t believe it. If he were harmless, why should he be kept in rooms by himself, and be locked in? No, Chris; depend upon it, he’s a dangerous lunatic, and that man who rushed out is his keeper. He had been struggling with him; we heard him. And I don’t intend to remain under the same roof with a raving madman for another night.” CHAPTER V. MASTER AND MAN. To have a raving lunatic under the same roof with you is an experience which appeals differently to different minds. To the middle-aged it is a fact calculated to send a “cold shiver down the back,” while to the very young it suggests untold possibilities of danger and excitement. It is not surprising, therefore, that while Mrs. Abercarne made up her mind to go as soon as she heard of the existence of Mr. Richard, to Chris this was only another inducement to stay. It was a hard matter, however, to bring her mother to her way of thinking; and when Mrs. Abercarne insisted on replacing in her trunks the things which she had begun to unpack, the young girl almost gave up hoping to change her determination. “Now I shall go downstairs and knock at the door of the study, and explain to Mr. Bradfield how impossible it is that we should remain here under the circumstances,” said the elder lady decidedly, as she straightened the lace she wore round her neck, preparatory to making an imposing entrance into her employer’s presence. “But, mother, you told him just now that you were not a bit frightened, and he will think you are very changeable to have altered your mind so soon.” “I have had time to think it over,” explained her mother, rather weakly. “One does not see everything in the first minute. And it is not for myself I care. But a young girl like you must not be exposed to the vagaries of a madman, nor live in a house that is talked about.” Chris was silent. Against those mysterious conventions which bound her mother down more tightly than prison walls, she knew that all her arguments, all her persuasions, would be powerless. With sorrowful eyes she watched her mother finish repacking, shut down the lid of the last portmanteau, and leave the room with the firm steps of a woman who had finally and firmly made up her mind.