In high
spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever
your affectionate cousin,
MONICA.'
Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however, began
to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by total
eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent with many
well-established and awful incongruities, and their wrecks lay strown over
the troubled waters of the gulf into which I gazed.
Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about the place? Why was I a
prisoner within the walls? What were those dangers which Meg Hawkes seemed
to think so great and so imminent as to induce her to risk her lover's
safety for my deliverance? All these menacing facts stood grouped together
against the dark certainty that never were men more deeply interested in
making away with one human being, than were Uncle Silas and Dudley in
removing me.
Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul. Sometimes,
reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would clear, and my terrors
melt away like nightmares in the morning.
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