'Take my advice in time, and don't touch that!' said her strange visitor with sudden insolence of manner, while something of malevolence and triumph sparkled in her dark eyes. 'You must be mad, or----' 'Tipsy, you would say--I am neither; but I have that to say which you may not wish to furnish gossip for your servants, so do not summon them until I am gone.' 'Will you be so kind as to state at once the object of your visit?' said Maude, with as much hauteur as she could summon to her aid. 'So you are his wife--a doll like you! Mrs. Elliot of Braidielee, you think yourself!' said the woman mockingly; 'I fear I have that to tell which your dainty ears will not find very pleasant. But "gather ye rosebuds while ye may;" for ere long only the leaves, dead and without fragrance, will be left you!' Maude felt herself grow pale and tremble; she knew that there was a great lunatic asylum somewhere in that quarter of the city, and began to fear that her visitor was an escaped patient. She moved a step towards the bell again, and cast a lingering, longing glance at it, on which the woman again said sharply: 'Don't! Listen to me, I tell you!' Placing her elbows on a small Chippendale table, off which, without ceremony, she thrust a few books, she rested her chin upon her left hand, and looking at the shrinking Maude steadily and defiantly--for the perfect purity of the girl, her position in life, her whole aspect and bearing filled this fallen one--for fallen she was--with rivalry, envy, and hatred, she asked: 'Now, who do you think I am?' 'That I have yet to learn,' replied Maude, who was moving towards the door, when the next words of the woman arrested her steps. 'Learn that I am Captain John Elliot's--lawful wife!' 'Oh--she is mad!' thought Maude, who neither tottered, nor fainted, nor made any outcry, deeming the bold assertion as totally absurd. 'You don't believe me, I suppose?' 'You must hold me excused if I do not,' replied Maude, thinking that she must temporise with a woman who, for all she knew, might bite her like a rabid dog; for poor Maude had very vague ideas of the ways and proclivities of lunatics in general. She had but one desire, to rush past, to gain the door and escape; but was baffled by the expression of the woman's watchful black eyes. That she was not and never had been a lady was evident; neither did she seem of the servant class; so Maude's inexperienced eye was unable to fix her place in the scale of society, though her costume was good--if showy--even to her well-fitting gloves. 'You would wish to see my marriage-lines, I doubt not,' said the visitor with a smile, drawing a couple of folded papers from her bosom; 'but perhaps you had better read this first. I am a great believer in documentary evidence, and hope you are so too.'