, for one moment--they inspire me equally with terror,
indescribable," and I covered my face to hide its burning blushes.

"Look up, Miss Monfort, and listen to me," said Mrs. Clayton, at last,
regarding me keenly, with her warped forefinger uplifted in her usual
admonitory fashion, but with an expression on her face of interest and
sympathy such as I had never witnessed there before. "A new light has
broken just now upon my understanding; I can't tell how or whence it
came, but here it is," pressing her hand to her brow; "I believe you
have been misrepresented to me--but that is neither here nor there. I
shall watch you closely and faithfully until we part--all the more that
I do not believe you any more crazy than I am; I half suspected this
before, but I know it now." She paused, then continued: "I should have
to tell you my life's secret if I were to explain to you why Mr.
Bainrothe's interests are so dear to me, so vital even, and I will not
conceal from you that I knew your guardeen's good name depends on your
confinement here until you come of age. After that it will only be
necessary for you to sign a few papers, and all will be straight
again--no harm or insult is designed. To these I would never have lent
myself in any way--ill as you think of me. And as long as we continue
together I will guard your good name as I would do that of my own dear
daughter--that is, if I had one. You shall receive no visitor alone."

She spoke with a feeling and dignity of which I had scarcely believed
her capable, shrewd and sensible as I knew her to be, and far above the
woman she called her mistress, in a certain _retenu_ of manner and
delicacy of deportment, usually inseparable from good-breeding.

I could not then guess how acceptable, to her and the person she was
chiefly interested in, were these signs of my aversion for Basil
Bainrothe, and what sure means they were of access to the only tender
spot in the obdurate heart of Rachel Clayton.

Certain it is that, from these expressions, I derived the first
consolation that had come to me in my immurement, and from that hour the
solemn farce of keeper and lunatic ceased to be played between us two.

From such freedom of communication on my jailer's part, I began to hope
for additional information, which never came. It was in vain that I
conjured her to tell me where my prison was situated, whether at the
edge of the city, or far away in the country, or to suffer me to have