He looked at me keenly: I say, there must have been some doubt on his mind. "Are you aware that I know you, Anne? I think you must know me. As your uncle, your only living relative, I have a right to question you of these and other things." My heart beat violently. Nearly too sick to speak felt I: and the words shook as they issued from my lips. "You are not my uncle, sir. Selina was my aunt, but——" "And as Selina's husband, I became your uncle, Anne, by law. She is dead, but I am living: your uncle still. So you did know me?" "I have known you, sir, ever since the day I first saw you here." "It is more than I did by you, young lady; or I should not have allowed you to remain so quietly at Chandos. For the sake of my dead wife, I hold an interest in your welfare: and _that_ will not be enhanced by your companionship with Harry Chandos." The hint conveyed by the words half frightened me to death. _He_ allow me! _he_ assume a right to control me! I spoke out in my sick terror. "You cannot have any power over me or my actions, Mr. Edwin Barley." "Indeed I have, Anne. The law would say so. Do you know who Mrs. Penn is?" he abruptly asked. "I don't know who Mrs. Penn is or where she comes from," was my quick reply, glad he had put a question at last that I could answer honestly. "Will you please to let me go, sir? it is getting dark." "Not just yet. You must first reply to a question or two I wish to ask touching Harry Chandos. To begin with: Does he go often from home?" Sick, faint, weak, though I was, I had presence of mind to put up one little sentence of prayer to be helped to do right: and that right I knew lay in denying him all information. "I cannot tell you anything whatever about Mr. Chandos—or what he does—or what any one else does. As long as I am in the family, protected by them, trusted by them, it is dishonourable even to listen to such questions. But indeed I know nothing. If the Chandos family have secrets, they do not tell them to me." "I should not imagine they would. I am not asking you for secrets. There are reasons why I wish to learn a little of their ordinary everyday doings. This, at any rate, is a simple question: Does Mr. Harry Chandos——" "It is of no use, sir; I will not answer that or any other. Pray do not stop me again! I hope you will pardon me for reminding you that I heard Mr. Chandos desire you not to intrude on these grounds: I think you ought to obey him, sir." His face, always stern, grew fierce in its anger. Perhaps it was only natural that it should. He raised his hand before me. "I hold the Chandoses under my finger and thumb. A little movement (here he closed them), and they may go trooping out of the kingdom to hide their disgrace; your friend, Mr. Harry, with all his high and mighty pride, leading the van. It will not be long first. By the obedience you owed your Aunt Selina, my dead wife, by the tenderness for her cherished memory, I order you to speak. You must do so, Anne."