"No, sir; I am not to be called a friend at all; quite otherwise. Until a few days ago, I was a stranger to them. Accident brought me then to Chandos, but my stay here will be temporary." "I should be glad to make your acquaintance by name," he went on, never taking those terrible eyes off me. Not that the eyes in themselves were so very terrible; but the fear of my childhood had returned to me in all its force—a very bugbear. I had made the first acquaintance of Mr. Edwin Barley in a moment of fear—that is, he frightened me. Unintentionally on his own part, it is true, but with not less of effect upon me. The circumstances of horror (surely it is not too strong a word) that had followed, in all of which he was mixed up, had only tended to increase the feeling; and woman-grown though I was now, the meeting with him had brought it all back to me. "Will you not favour me with your name?" He spoke politely, quite as a gentleman, but I felt my face grow red, white, hot, and cold. I had answered his questions, feeling that I dared not resist; that I feared to show him aught but civility; but—to give him my name; to rush, as it were, into the lion's jaws! No, I would not do that; and I plucked up what courage was left me. "My name is of no consequence, sir. I am but a very humble individual, little more than a schoolgirl. I was brought here by a lady, who, immediately upon her arrival, was recalled home by illness in her family, and I am in daily expectation of a summons from her; after which I daresay I shall never see Chandos or any of its inmates again. Will you be kind enough to allow me to pass?" "You must mean Miss Chandos—I don't recollect her married name," said he, without stirring. "I heard she had been here: and left almost as soon as she came." I bowed my head and tried to pass him. I might as readily have tried to pass through the privet hedge. "Some lady was taken away ill, yesterday," he resumed. "Who was it?" "It was Mrs. Freeman." "Oh! the companion. I thought as much. Is she very ill?" "It was something of a fit, I believe. It did not last long." "Those fits are ticklish things," he remarked. "I should think she will not be in a state to return for some time, if at all." He had turned his eyes away now, and was speaking in a dreamy sort of tone; as I once heard him speak to Selina. "They will be wanting some one to fill Mrs. Freeman's place, will they not?" "I cannot say, I'm sure, sir. The family do not talk of their affairs before me." "Who is staying at Chandos now?" he abruptly asked. "Only the family." "Ah! the family—of course. I mean what members of it." "All; except Madame de Mellissie and Sir Thomas Chandos." "That is, there are Lady Chandos, her son, and daughter-in-law. That comprises the whole, I suppose—except you." "Yes, it does. But I must really beg you to allow me to pass, sir."