It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It must have
been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to talk of business at home,
and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.
I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations. I am
not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was, in my
mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an impiety.
And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and
intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.
I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk. She was not
easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion. The sun was setting now,
when Mary Quince brought me a letter which had just arrived by the post. My
heart throbbed violently. I was afraid to break the broad black seal. It
was from Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleasant mandates
which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a shock. At last
I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readiness for the
journey to Bartram-Haugh.
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