"You think him mad?" faltered Margaret, looking anxiously at him, a ray of hope coming to her. If this man who had experience thought so, might he not convince the doctors? "I think so; at least I know he is mad at times. No man in his senses would go on as he has done," and the man smoothed out his collar regardless of Mrs. Drayton's presence. "You see he is very dangerous and very cunning, and that's where it is. You might have any number of doctors to see him, and before them he controls himself so that no one would believe him to be what he is. I never was treated so before," and he smoothed his hair and prepared to leave her. "Can you not stop?" whispered Margaret, in greater agitation; "I--I am frightened." "I cannot stop because now he's took against me," he answered, "and he shouts the moment he sees me. I've lost all control of him, and my staying would do no good to you or to no one else." Poor Margaret looked despairingly at him, and, a little moved by her expression, he said briskly-- "Don't you be afraid, ma'am. I'll go straight to the doctor; he sent me here, and he knows me, and I'll tell him exactly what it is, and he'll come first thing and see him." Margaret saw him go, with absolute despair. She had suffered very much lately; her baby who slept with her had been so fretful and so very sleepless. The poor child herself had no experience, and the nurse she had was a young woman who was good-tempered and kind, but not skilful. For several nights the child had never slept except in Margaret's weary arms, as she walked up and down, and up and down with it. Each time she tried to lay it down it woke and cried, and, like all children accustomed to being much fondled and carried about by its mother, it disliked being handed over to the nurse when it was ill. The want of sleep, the incessant terror she was in, all she went through with those terrible tireless eyes always upon her, everything combined to make her really ill. The strain became intolerable, and Margaret recognised that something must be done--some one must interfere in her behalf and take her and her child away. Only through her nurse could she hear of Grace. Jean went repeatedly to the house, and never succeeded in baffling Mr. Drayton's watchfulness. Now the man-servant had gone he never opened the door, and the bells might ring all day long, he took no notice. More than once Margaret glided to the door trusting to give a message, to hear a voice she knew, only to feel a hard grip upon her shoulder, and to be thrust back. The stone passage between the gate and the house was too long for her to make herself heard. She could not understand why Grace sent no message and why no letters reached her--and only found out long afterwards that her cook, who not unnaturally found the place anything but what she liked, spent her time in going to London and looking for another situation, and never went near Grace at all.