Furnivall was thinking of nothing but his
fine organ, and his finer music, the dark
foreigner was walking abroad in the woods
with one of the young ladies; now Miss
Maude, and then Miss Grace.

Miss Maude won the day and carried off the
prize, such as it was; and he and she were
married, all unknown to any one; and before
he made his next yearly visit, she had been
confined of a little girl at a farm-house on the
Moors, while her father and Miss Grace
thought she was away at Doncaster Races.
But though she was a wife and a mother, she
was not a bit softened, but as haughty and as
passionate as ever; and perhaps more so, for
she was jealous of Miss Grace, to whom her
foreign husband paid a deal of court— by way
of blinding her— as he told his wife. But
Miss Grace triumphed over Miss Maude, and
Miss Maude grew fiercer and fiercer, both
with her husband and with her sister; and
the former— who could easily shake off what
was disagreeable, and hide himself in foreign
countries— went away a month before his usual
time that summer, and half threatened that
he would never come back again. Meanwhile,
the little girl was left at the farm-house, and
her mother used to have her horse saddled
and gallop wildly over the hills to see her
once every week, at the very least— for where
she loved, she loved; and where she hated,
she hated. And the old lord went on playing
— playing on his organ; and the servants
thought the sweet music he made had soothed
down his awful temper, of which (Dorothy
said) some terrible tales could be told. He
grew infirm too, and had to walk with a
crutch; and his son— that was the present
Lord Furnivall's father— was with the
army in America, and the other son at
sea; so Miss Maude had it pretty much her
own way, and she and Miss Grace grew
colder and bitterer to each other every day;
till at last they hardly ever spoke, except
when the old lord was by. The foreign
musician came again the next summer, but it
was for the last time; for they led him such
a life with their jealousy and their passions,
that he grew weary, and went away, and
never was heard of again. And Miss Maude,
who had always meant to have her marriage
acknowledged when her father should be
dead, was left now a deserted wife— whom
nobody knew to have been married— with a
child that she dared not own, although she
loved it to distraction; living with a father
whom she feared, and a sister whom she
hated. When the next summer passed over
and the dark foreigner never came, both Miss
Maude and Miss Grace grew gloomy and
sad; they had a haggard look about them,
though they looked handsome as ever. But by
and by Miss Maude brightened; for her father
grew more and more infirm, and more than
ever carried away by his music; and she and
Miss Grace lived almost entirely apart,
having separate rooms, the one on the west
side— Miss Maude on the east— those very
rooms which were now shut up. So she
thought she might have her little girl with
her, and no one need ever know except those
who dared not speak about it, and were
bound to believe that it was, as she said, a
cottager's child she had taken a fancy
to. All this, Dorothy said, was pretty well
known; but what came afterwards no one
knew, except Miss Grace, and Mrs. Stark,
who was even then her maid, and much more
of a friend to her than ever her sister had
been. But the servants supposed, from
words that were dropped, that Miss Maude
had triumphed over Miss Grace, and told her
that all the time the dark foreigner had been
mocking her with pretended love— he was
her own husband; the colour left Miss
Grace's cheek and lips that very day for ever,
and she was heard to say many a time that
sooner or later she would have her revenge;
and Mrs. Stark was for ever spying about
the east rooms.

One fearful night, just after the New Year
had come in, when the snow was lying thick
and deep, and the flakes were still falling— fast
enough to blind any one who might be out
and abroad— there was a great and violent
noise heard, and the old lord's voice above
all, cursing and swearing awfully,— and the
cries of a little child,— and the proud defiance
of a fierce woman,— and the sound of a blow,
— and a dead stillness,— and moans and
wailings dying away on the hill-side! Then
the old lord summoned all his servants, and
told them, with terrible oaths, and words
more terrible, that his daughter had disgraced
herself, and that he had turned her
out of doors,— her, and her child,— and that
if ever they gave her help,— or food— or
shelter,— he prayed that they might never
enter Heaven. And, all the while, Miss
Grace stood by him, white and still as any
stone; and when he had ended she heaved a
great sigh, as much as to say her work was
done, and her end was accomplished. But
the old lord never touched his organ again,
and died within the year; and no wonder!
for, on the morrow of that wild and fearful
night, the shepherds, coming down the Fell
side, found Miss Maude sitting, all crazy and
smiling, under the holly-trees, nursing a dead
child,— with a terrible mark on its right
shoulder. "But that was not what killed it,"
said Dorothy; "it was the frost and the
cold,— every wild creature was in its hole,
and every beast in its fold,— while the child
and its mother were turned out to wander
on the Fells! And now you know all!
and I wonder if you are less frightened
now?"

I was more frightened than ever; but I said
I was not. I wished Miss Rosamond and
myself well out of that dreadful house for ever;
but I would not leave her, and I dared not
take her away. But oh! how I watched
her, and guarded her! We bolted the doors,