Milly is sent to a French boarding school by her father, Silas Ruthyn, in a separation that exposes how much Maud Ruthyn depends on her cousin’s companionship within the isolation of Bartram-Haugh. Presented as a temporary educational arrangement, the departure is also a practical rupture: Milly is removed from Maud’s daily life, and Maud must take comfort in a promise that their separation will not last beyond three months.

Background and Arrangement

The departure takes place under the guardianship arrangements established by Austin Ruthyn’s will. Austin left his estates in trust for Maud, with legacies for his brother, Silas, and Silas’s two children, and appointed Silas Maud’s sole guardian until she reached twenty-one. Maud was to live at Bartram-Haugh under his authority; the trustees were to pay him £2,000 a year for her maintenance, education, and expenses. The legal arrangement thus places both young women’s lives within the household and decisions of the same guardian, though Maud’s inheritance and Milly’s schooling are distinct matters.

Austin’s will had invested Silas’s guardianship with an additional moral purpose. He described his brother as oppressed by slander and entrusted Maud to him as an ordeal meant to vindicate Silas’s character; if Maud died before coming of age, the property would pass to Silas. Doctor Bryerly later emphasizes the consequences of that provision: Silas has custody of Maud as well as a financial interest in the estate, and, in Bryerly’s view, his management of the property is impoverishing it to Silas’s benefit. The schooling decision occurs within this larger structure of dependency, but the evidence does not establish that Silas sends Milly away for financial reasons or as part of a plan against Maud.

The News and the Promise

Milly brings Maud the news in tears, running into the parlour with wet cheeks and throwing her arms around her cousin’s neck before she can explain what has happened. She says that Silas is going to send her away. The destination makes the loss more definite: she is going to France, leaving with Mrs. Jolks for London, where an older French woman from the school is to meet her and accompany her for the rest of the journey. Milly stresses how unfamiliar departure is to her; apart from a brief visit to Elverston with Maud, she has never been away from home. She tells Maud that she loves her more than Bartram and fears she will die if they take her away.

The full arrangement is disclosed in a note from Silas to Maud. Milly is to attend what he calls an admirable French school as a boarder and leave on the following Thursday. If she finds the school objectionable after a three-month trial, she may return. If she likes it, Maud is to join her there when the three months have elapsed, until Silas’s temporary financial difficulties have been sufficiently adjusted for him to receive Maud again at Bartram. Silas says that three months is the maximum separation, and explains that he has written because he feels unequal to seeing Maud at that moment. The note permits Maud to tell Monica Knollys about the arrangements, but only to convey their substance rather than provide a copy.

Parting at Windmill Wood

The note changes the sisters’ first despair into a sorrow they can partly contain. Maud and Milly read it closely and take comfort in its limits: the separation may be shorter than three months, and, if it is not, Maud has been promised a reunion in France. Maud even persuades herself that Silas’s peremptory message is kind. They plan to correspond closely and imagine that a meeting abroad could bring the pleasure of unfamiliar scenery, customs, and faces. Hope does not cancel the loss; it gives the loss a term and an anticipated answer.

On Thursday, Maud and Milly part at the gate at the far end of Windmill Wood. They embrace repeatedly, exchange tearful smiles and farewells, and are hurried along by Mrs. Jolks, who is anxious about the train and the journey to London. Maud watches Milly lean her head from the carriage window and wave until the road curves and ivy-covered ash trees hide the carriage from sight. Only then does she turn back toward Bartram-Haugh. Mary Quince is beside her, reassuring her that three months will pass quickly; Maud smiles through her tears, kisses Mary, and re-enters the gate with her.

Consequences and Significance

The departure makes visible the emotional cost of the household’s isolation. Earlier, Maud had feared being left alone at Bartram-Haugh, a place she describes as beautiful but gloomy, with associations that can make its solitude almost terrible. Milly’s presence is therefore more than a family convenience: their closeness gives Maud a companion with whom to share confidences and imagined plans. The physical departure at the gate converts the prospect of separation into an absence that Maud must carry back inside.

The episode also sets Maud’s immediate fear against the measured language of Silas’s note. He frames the move as a trial at an admirable school, offers a return if Milly dislikes it, and caps the separation at three months while linking Maud’s proposed visit to his financial circumstances. The sisters respond to that conditional promise by arranging correspondence and imagining reunion, but the scene records only the departure and their expectation; it does not confirm the later outcome of the school trial or whether Maud joins Milly in France. Its decisive change is narrower and immediate: Milly leaves, and Maud returns to Bartram-Haugh without the cousin whose companionship has helped her endure it.