'Oh, uncle I--oh, sir!--you cannot allow this to happen. What will people
say of me? And--and there is poor Milly--and _everything_! Think what it
will be.'
'It cannot be helped--_you_ cannot help it, Maud. Listen to me. There will
be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon, but, I think, in a
little more than a fortnight. I must provide for your comfort. You must
leave. I have arranged that you shall join Milly, for the present, in
France, till I have time to look about me. You had better, I think, write
to your cousin, Lady Knollys. She, with all her oddities, has a heart. Can
you say, Maud, that I have been kind?'
'You have never been anything but kind,' I exclaimed.
'That I've been self-denying when you made me a generous offer?' he
continued. 'That I now act to spare you pain? You may tell her, not as a
message from me, but as a fact, that I am seriously thinking of vacating my
guardianship--that I feel I have done her an injustice, and that, so
soon as my mind is a little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a
reconciliation with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care
of your person and education to _her_.
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