Edith read this letter over and over again, with many mingled feelings. Wiggins had left her so much to herself of late that she had begun to count upon his continued inaction, and supposed that he was too much afraid of Dudleigh to interfere, or to make any opposition whatever to his visits. Now, however, she saw that he had made up his mind to action, and she fully believed that he was not the man who would make any idle menace. The thing that offended Edith most in this letter was what she considered its insolence. Its tone was that of a superior addressing an inferior--a patron speaking to a dependent. At this all the stubborn pride of Edith's nature was outraged, and rose in rebellion; but above all was that pride stimulated by the word “obey.” She also saw in that letter the indications of an unpleasant development of the policy of Wiggins, which would make her future darker than her present was. Hitherto he had simply surrounded her with a barrier over which she could not pass, admitting to her only those whom he wished, or whom he could not keep away. But now she saw some approach made to a more positive tyranny. There was a threat of limiting her freedom. What that meant she could easily conjecture. Wiggins was evidently dissatisfied with the liberty which she still had of walking over the grounds. He now intended to confine her within the Hall--perhaps in her own room. This showed her what she had to expect in the future. The steps of her tyrant's progress would be gradual, but terrible. First, perhaps she would be confined to the Hall, then to her own rooms, and finally perhaps to some small chamber--some cell--where she would live a living death as long as her jailer might allow her. In addition to this open show of tyranny, she also saw what seemed to her the secret craft by which Wiggins had contrived an excuse for further restraint. She considered Mowbray and Mrs. Mowbray as direct agents of his. As for Dudleigh, she now though that Wiggins had not been so much afraid of him as he had appeared to be, but had allowed him to come so as to gain an excuse for further coercion. It was evident to Edith that Dudleigh's transparent integrity of character and his ardent espousal of her cause must be well known to Wiggins, and that he only tolerated this visitor so as to gain a plausible pretext for putting her under restraint.