"Maude, I forbid you to interfere in this; you must not. For Heaven's sake, sit down and remain quiet." "I'll see your visitor, and know, at last, what this strange trouble is. I will, Lord Hartledon." "You must not: do you hear me?" he reiterated with deep emotion, for she was trying to force her way out of the room. "Maude--listen--I do not mean to be harsh, but for your own good I conjure you to be still. I forbid you, by the obedience you promised me before God, to inquire into or stir in this matter. It is a private affair of my own, and not yours. Stay here until I return." Maude drew back, as if in compliance; and Lord Hartledon, supposing he had prevailed, quitted the room and closed the door. He was quite mistaken. Never had her solemn vows of obedience been so utterly despised; never had the temptation to evil been so rife in her heart. She unlatched the door and listened. Lord Hartledon went downstairs and into the library, just as he had done the evening before the christening. And Lady Hartledon was certain the same man awaited him there. Ringing the nursery-bell, she took off her slippers, unseen, and hid them under a chair. "Remain here with the children," was her order to the nurse who appeared, as she shut the woman into the room. Creeping down softly she opened the door of the room behind the library, and glided in. It was a small room, used exclusively by Lord Hartledon, where he kept a heterogeneous collection of things--papers, books, cigars, pipes, guns, scientific models, anything--and which no one but himself ever attempted to enter. The intervening door between that and the library was not quite closed; and Lady Hartledon, cautiously pushed it a little further open. Wilful, unpardonable disobedience! when he had so strongly forbidden her! It was the same tall stranger. He was speaking in low tones, and Lord Hartledon leaned against the wall with a blank expression of face. She saw; and heard. But how she controlled her feelings, how she remained and made no sign, she never knew. But that the instinct of self-esteem was one of her strongest passions, the dread of detection in proportion to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert her in returning. Had their senses been on the alert they might have heard her poor heart beating. The interview did not last long--about twenty minutes; and whilst Lord Hartledon was attending his visitor to the door she escaped upstairs again, motioned away the nurse, and resumed her shoes. But what did she look like? Not like Maude Hartledon. Her face was as that of one upon whom some awful doom has fallen; her breath was coming painfully; and she kneeled down on the carpet and clasped her children to her beating heart with an action of wild despair. "Oh, my boy! my boy! Oh, my little Maude!"