ch I had seen lying
hushed on my father's breast--CLARA!--That way, lay the grief that
weakens, the yearning and the terror that are near despair; that way was
not it for _me._

The servant was at the garden-gate of North Villa--the same servant whom
I had seen and questioned in the first days of my fatal delusion. She
was receiving a letter from a man, very poorly dressed, who walked away
the moment I approached. Her confusion and surprise were so great as she
let me in, that she could hardly look at, or speak to me. It was only
when I was ascending the door-steps that she said--

"Miss Margaret"--(she still gave her that name!)--"Miss Margaret is
upstairs, Sir. I suppose you would like--"

"I have no wish to see her: I want to speak to Mr. Sherwin."

Looking more bewildered, and even frightened, than before, the girl
hurriedly opened one of the doors in the passage. I saw, as I entered,
that she had shown me, in her confusion, into the wrong room. Mr.
Sherwin, who was in the apartment, hastily drew a screen across the
lower end of it, apparently to hide something from me; which, however, I
had not seen as I came in.

He advanced, holding out his hand; but his restless eyes wandered
unsteadily, looking away from me towards the screen.

"So you have come at last, have you? Just let's step into the
drawing-room: the fact is--I thought I wrote to you about it--?"

He stopped suddenly, and his outstretched arm fell to his side. I had
not said a word. Something in my look and manner must have told him
already on what errand I had come.

"Why don't you speak?" he said, after a moment's pause. "What are you
looking at me like that for? Stop! Let's say our say in the other room."
He walked past me towards the door, and half opened it.

Why was he so anxious to get me away? Who, or what, was he hiding behind
the screen? The servant had said his daughter was upstairs; remembering
this, and suspecting every action or word that came from him, I
determined to remain in the room, and discover his secret. It was
evidently connected with me.

"Now then," he continued, opening the door a little wider, "it's only
across the hall, you know; and I always receive visitors in the best
room."

"I have been admitted here," I replied, "and have neither time nor
inclination to follow you from room to room, just as you like. What
I have to say is not much; and, unless you give me fit reasons to the
contrary, I shall say it here."