In the first part of the novel, Maud's father hires a French governess, Madame de la Rougierre, as a companion for her. Madame de la Rougierre terrifies Maud and appears to have designs on her; during two of their walks together, Maud is brought into suspicious contact with strangers that seem to be known to Madame de la Rougierre. (In a cutaway scene that breaks the first-person narrative, we learn that she is in league with Uncle Silas's good-for-nothing son Dudley.) The governess is eventually dismissed when she is discovered by Maud in the act of burgling her father's desk.