The Woman in White

by

Wilkie Collins

CONTENTS

First Epoch

     THE
STORY BEGUN BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
    
THE STORY CONTINUED BY VINCENT GILMORE
    

THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE

Second Epoch

     THE
STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE.
    
THE STORY CONTINUED BY FREDERICK FAIRLIE, ESQ.
    
THE STORY CONTINUED BY ELIZA
MICHELSON
    

THE STORY CONTINUED IN SEVERAL
NARRATIVES

         1.
THE NARRATIVE OF HESTER PINHORN
        

2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR
        

3. THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD
        

4. THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE
        

5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT

Third Epoch

     THE
STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
    
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MRS. CATHERICK
    

THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
    
THE STORY CONTINUED BY
ISIDOR, OTTAVIO, BALDASSARE FOSCO
    
THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT

THE STORY BEGUN BY WALTER HARTRIGHT

(of Clement’s Inn, Teacher of Drawing)

This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s
resolution can achieve.

If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of
suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate
assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events
which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public
attention in a Court of Justice.

But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant
of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time,
in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall
hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end
of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer
of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be more
closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will
describe them in his own person. When his experience fails, he will retire
from the position of narrator; and his task will be continued, from the
point at which he has left it off, by other persons who can speak to the
circumstances under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly and
positively as he has spoken before them.

Thus, the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the
story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one
witness—with the same object, in both cases, to present the truth
always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect; and to trace the
course of one complete series of events, by making the persons who have
been most closely connected with them, at each successive stage, relate
their own experience, word for word.

Let Walter Hartright, teacher of drawing, aged twenty-eight years, be
heard first.

II

It was the last day of July. The long hot summer was drawing to a close;
and we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think
of the cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes on the
sea-shore.

For my own poor part, the fading summer left me out of health, out of
spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as well. During the
past year I had not managed my professional resources as carefully as
usual; and my extravagance now limited me to the prospect of spending the
autumn economically between my mother’s cottage at Hampstead and my own
chambers in town.

The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was at its
heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its faintest; the
small pulse of the life within me, and the great heart of the city around
me, seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with the
sinking sun. I roused myself from the book which I was dreaming over
rather than reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in
the suburbs. It was one of the two evenings in every week which I was
accustomed to spend with my mother and my sister. So I turned my steps
northward in the direction of Hampstead.

Events which I have yet to relate make it necessary to mention in this
place that my father had been dead some years at the period of which I am
now writing; and that my sister Sarah and I were the sole survivors of a
family of five children. My father was a drawing-master before me. His
exertions had made him highly successful in his profession; and his
affectionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who were dependent
on his labours had impelled him, from the time of his marriage, to devote
to the insuring of his life a much larger portion of his income than most
men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose. Thanks to his
admirable prudence and self-denial my mother and sister were left, after
his death, as independent of the world as they had been during his
lifetime. I succeeded to his connection, and had every reason to feel
grateful for the prospect that awaited me at my starting in life.

The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the heath;
and the view of London below me had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow
of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of my mother’s cottage.
I had hardly rung the bell before the house door was opened violently; my
worthy Italian friend, Professor Pesca, appeared in the servant’s place;
and darted out joyously to receive me, with a shrill foreign parody on an
English cheer.

On his own account, and, I must be allowed to add, on mine also, the
Professor merits the honour of a formal introduction. Accident has made
him the starting-point of the strange family story which it is the purpose
of these pages to unfold.

I had first become acquainted with my Italian friend by meeting him at
certain great houses where he taught his own language and I taught
drawing. All I then knew of the history of his life was, that he had once
held a situation in the University of Padua; that he had left Italy for
political reasons (the nature of which he uniformly declined to mention to
any one); and that he had been for many years respectably established in
London as a teacher of languages.

Without being actually a dwarf—for he was perfectly well
proportioned from head to foot—Pesca was, I think, the smallest
human being I ever saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere, by his
personal appearance, he was still further distinguished among the rank and
file of mankind by the harmless eccentricity of his character. The ruling
idea of his life appeared to be, that he was bound to show his gratitude
to the country which had afforded him an asylum and a means of subsistence
by doing his utmost to turn himself into an Englishman. Not content with
paying the nation in general the compliment of invariably carrying an
umbrella, and invariably wearing gaiters and a white hat, the Professor
further aspired to become an Englishman in his habits and amusements, as
well as in his personal appearance. Finding us distinguished, as a nation,
by our love of athletic exercises, the little man, in the innocence of his
heart, devoted himself impromptu to all our English sports and pastimes
whenever he had the opportunity of joining them; firmly persuaded that he
could adopt our national amusements of the field by an effort of will
precisely as he had adopted our national gaiters and our national white
hat.

I had seen him risk his limbs blindly at a fox-hunt and in a
cricket-field; and soon afterwards I saw him risk his life, just as
blindly, in the sea at Brighton.

We had met there accidentally, and were bathing together. If we had been
engaged in any exercise peculiar to my own nation I should, of course,
have looked after Pesca carefully; but as foreigners are generally quite
as well able to take care of themselves in the water as Englishmen, it
never occurred to me that the art of swimming might merely add one more to
the list of manly exercises which the Professor believed that he could
learn impromptu. Soon after we had both struck out from shore, I stopped,
finding my friend did not gain on me, and turned round to look for him. To
my horror and amazement, I saw nothing between me and the beach but two
little white arms which struggled for an instant above the surface of the
water, and then disappeared from view. When I dived for him, the poor
little man was lying quietly coiled up at the bottom, in a hollow of
shingle, looking by many degrees smaller than I had ever seen him look
before. During the few minutes that elapsed while I was taking him in, the
air revived him, and he ascended the steps of the machine with my
assistance. With the partial recovery of his animation came the return of
his wonderful delusion on the subject of swimming. As soon as his
chattering teeth would let him speak, he smiled vacantly, and said he
thought it must have been the Cramp.

When he had thoroughly recovered himself, and had joined me on the beach,
his warm Southern nature broke through all artificial English restraints
in a moment. He overwhelmed me with the wildest expressions of affection—exclaimed
passionately, in his exaggerated Italian way, that he would hold his life
henceforth at my disposal—and declared that he should never be happy
again until he had found an opportunity of proving his gratitude by
rendering me some service which I might remember, on my side, to the end
of my days.

I did my best to stop the torrent of his tears and protestations by
persisting in treating the whole adventure as a good subject for a joke;
and succeeded at last, as I imagined, in lessening Pesca’s overwhelming
sense of obligation to me. Little did I think then—little did I
think afterwards when our pleasant holiday had drawn to an end—that
the opportunity of serving me for which my grateful companion so ardently
longed was soon to come; that he was eagerly to seize it on the instant;
and that by so doing he was to turn the whole current of my existence into
a new channel, and to alter me to myself almost past recognition.

Yet so it was. If I had not dived for Professor Pesca when he lay under
water on his shingle bed, I should in all human probability never have
been connected with the story which these pages will relate—I should
never, perhaps, have heard even the name of the woman who has lived in all
my thoughts, who has possessed herself of all my energies, who has become
the one guiding influence that now directs the purpose of my life.

III

Pesca’s face and manner, on the evening when we confronted each other at
my mother’s gate, were more than sufficient to inform me that something
extraordinary had happened. It was quite useless, however, to ask him for
an immediate explanation. I could only conjecture, while he was dragging
me in by both hands, that (knowing my habits) he had come to the cottage
to make sure of meeting me that night, and that he had some news to tell
of an unusually agreeable kind.

We both bounced into the parlour in a highly abrupt and undignified
manner. My mother sat by the open window laughing and fanning herself.
Pesca was one of her especial favourites and his wildest eccentricities
were always pardonable in her eyes. Poor dear soul! from the first moment
when she found out that the little Professor was deeply and gratefully
attached to her son, she opened her heart to him unreservedly, and took
all his puzzling foreign peculiarities for granted, without so much as
attempting to understand any one of them.

My sister Sarah, with all the advantages of youth, was, strangely enough,
less pliable. She did full justice to Pesca’s excellent qualities of
heart; but she could not accept him implicitly, as my mother accepted him,
for my sake. Her insular notions of propriety rose in perpetual revolt
against Pesca’s constitutional contempt for appearances; and she was
always more or less undisguisedly astonished at her mother’s familiarity
with the eccentric little foreigner. I have observed, not only in my
sister’s case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young
generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our
elders. I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of
some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the
tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such
genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the
great advance in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in
these modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought up?

Without attempting to answer those questions decisively, I may at least
record that I never saw my mother and my sister together in Pesca’s
society, without finding my mother much the younger woman of the two. On
this occasion, for example, while the old lady was laughing heartily over
the boyish manner in which we tumbled into the parlour, Sarah was
perturbedly picking up the broken pieces of a teacup, which the Professor
had knocked off the table in his precipitate advance to meet me at the
door.

“I don’t know what would have happened, Walter,” said my mother, “if you
had delayed much longer. Pesca has been half mad with impatience, and I
have been half mad with curiosity. The Professor has brought some
wonderful news with him, in which he says you are concerned; and he has
cruelly refused to give us the smallest hint of it till his friend Walter
appeared.”

“Very provoking: it spoils the Set,” murmured Sarah to herself, mournfully
absorbed over the ruins of the broken cup.

While these words were being spoken, Pesca, happily and fussily
unconscious of the irreparable wrong which the crockery had suffered at
his hands, was dragging a large arm-chair to the opposite end of the room,
so as to command us all three, in the character of a public speaker
addressing an audience. Having turned the chair with its back towards us,
he jumped into it on his knees, and excitedly addressed his small
congregation of three from an impromptu pulpit.

“Now, my good dears,” began Pesca (who always said “good dears” when he
meant “worthy friends”), “listen to me. The time has come—I recite
my good news—I speak at last.”

“Hear, hear!” said my mother, humouring the joke.

“The next thing he will break, mamma,” whispered Sarah, “will be the back
of the best arm-chair.”

“I go back into my life, and I address myself to the noblest of created
beings,” continued Pesca, vehemently apostrophising my unworthy self over
the top rail of the chair. “Who found me dead at the bottom of the sea
(through Cramp); and who pulled me up to the top; and what did I say when
I got into my own life and my own clothes again?”

“Much more than was at all necessary,” I answered as doggedly as possible;
for the least encouragement in connection with this subject invariably let
loose the Professor’s emotions in a flood of tears.

“I said,” persisted Pesca, “that my life belonged to my dear friend,
Walter, for the rest of my days—and so it does. I said that I should
never be happy again till I had found the opportunity of doing a good
Something for Walter—and I have never been contented with myself
till this most blessed day. Now,” cried the enthusiastic little man at the
top of his voice, “the overflowing happiness bursts out of me at every
pore of my skin, like a perspiration; for on my faith, and soul, and
honour, the something is done at last, and the only word to say now is—Right-all-right!”

It may be necessary to explain here that Pesca prided himself on being a
perfect Englishman in his language, as well as in his dress, manners, and
amusements. Having picked up a few of our most familiar colloquial
expressions, he scattered them about over his conversation whenever they
happened to occur to him, turning them, in his high relish for their sound
and his general ignorance of their sense, into compound words and
repetitions of his own, and always running them into each other, as if
they consisted of one long syllable.

“Among the fine London Houses where I teach the language of my native
country,” said the Professor, rushing into his long-deferred explanation
without another word of preface, “there is one, mighty fine, in the big
place called Portland. You all know where that is? Yes, yes—course-of-course.
The fine house, my good dears, has got inside it a fine family. A Mamma,
fair and fat; three young Misses, fair and fat; two young Misters, fair
and fat; and a Papa, the fairest and the fattest of all, who is a mighty
merchant, up to his eyes in gold—a fine man once, but seeing that he
has got a naked head and two chins, fine no longer at the present time.
Now mind! I teach the sublime Dante to the young Misses, and ah!—my-soul-bless-my-soul!—it
is not in human language to say how the sublime Dante puzzles the pretty
heads of all three! No matter—all in good time—and the more
lessons the better for me. Now mind! Imagine to yourselves that I am
teaching the young Misses to-day, as usual. We are all four of us down
together in the Hell of Dante. At the Seventh Circle—but no matter
for that: all the Circles are alike to the three young Misses, fair and
fat,—at the Seventh Circle, nevertheless, my pupils are sticking
fast; and I, to set them going again, recite, explain, and blow myself up
red-hot with useless enthusiasm, when—a creak of boots in the
passage outside, and in comes the golden Papa, the mighty merchant with
the naked head and the two chins.—Ha! my good dears, I am closer
than you think for to the business, now. Have you been patient so far? or
have you said to yourselves, ‘Deuce-what-the-deuce! Pesca is long-winded
to-night?’”

We declared that we were deeply interested. The Professor went on:

“In his hand, the golden Papa has a letter; and after he has made his
excuse for disturbing us in our Infernal Region with the common mortal
Business of the house, he addresses himself to the three young Misses, and
begins, as you English begin everything in this blessed world that you
have to say, with a great O. ‘O, my dears,’ says the mighty merchant, ‘I
have got here a letter from my friend, Mr.——‘(the name has
slipped out of my mind; but no matter; we shall come back to that; yes,
yes—right-all-right). So the Papa says, ‘I have got a letter from my
friend, the Mister; and he wants a recommend from me, of a drawing-master,
to go down to his house in the country.’ My-soul-bless-my-soul! when I
heard the golden Papa say those words, if I had been big enough to reach
up to him, I should have put my arms round his neck, and pressed him to my
bosom in a long and grateful hug! As it was, I only bounced upon my chair.
My seat was on thorns, and my soul was on fire to speak but I held my
tongue, and let Papa go on. ‘Perhaps you know,’ says this good man of
money, twiddling his friend’s letter this way and that, in his golden
fingers and thumbs, ‘perhaps you know, my dears, of a drawing-master that
I can recommend?’ The three young Misses all look at each other, and then
say (with the indispensable great O to begin) “O, dear no, Papa! But here
is Mr. Pesca——’ At the mention of myself I can hold no longer—the
thought of you, my good dears, mounts like blood to my head—I start
from my seat, as if a spike had grown up from the ground through the
bottom of my chair—I address myself to the mighty merchant, and I
say (English phrase) ‘Dear sir, I have the man! The first and foremost
drawing-master of the world! Recommend him by the post to-night, and send
him off, bag and baggage (English phrase again—ha!), send him off,
bag and baggage, by the train to-morrow!’ ‘Stop, stop,’ says Papa; ‘is he
a foreigner, or an Englishman?’ ‘English to the bone of his back,’ I
answer. ‘Respectable?’ says Papa. ‘Sir,’ I say (for this last question of
his outrages me, and I have done being familiar with him—) ‘Sir! the
immortal fire of genius burns in this Englishman’s bosom, and, what is
more, his father had it before him!’ ‘Never mind,’ says the golden
barbarian of a Papa, ‘never mind about his genius, Mr. Pesca. We don’t
want genius in this country, unless it is accompanied by respectability—and
then we are very glad to have it, very glad indeed. Can your friend
produce testimonials—letters that speak to his character?’ I wave my
hand negligently. ‘Letters?’ I say. ‘Ha! my-soul-bless-my-soul! I should
think so, indeed! Volumes of letters and portfolios of testimonials, if
you like!’ ‘One or two will do,’ says this man of phlegm and money. ‘Let
him send them to me, with his name and address. And—stop, stop, Mr.
Pesca—before you go to your friend, you had better take a note.’
‘Bank-note!’ I say, indignantly. ‘No bank-note, if you please, till my
brave Englishman has earned it first.’ ‘Bank-note!’ says Papa, in a great
surprise, ‘who talked of bank-note? I mean a note of the terms—a
memorandum of what he is expected to do. Go on with your lesson, Mr.
Pesca, and I will give you the necessary extract from my friend’s letter.’
Down sits the man of merchandise and money to his pen, ink, and paper; and
down I go once again into the Hell of Dante, with my three young Misses
after me. In ten minutes’ time the note is written, and the boots of Papa
are creaking themselves away in the passage outside. From that moment, on
my faith, and soul, and honour, I know nothing more! The glorious thought
that I have caught my opportunity at last, and that my grateful service
for my dearest friend in the world is as good as done already, flies up
into my head and makes me drunk. How I pull my young Misses and myself out
of our Infernal Region again, how my other business is done afterwards,
how my little bit of dinner slides itself down my throat, I know no more
than a man in the moon. Enough for me, that here I am, with the mighty
merchant’s note in my hand, as large as life, as hot as fire, and as happy
as a king! Ha! ha! ha! right-right-right-all-right!” Here the Professor
waved the memorandum of terms over his head, and ended his long and
voluble narrative with his shrill Italian parody on an English cheer.

My mother rose the moment he had done, with flushed cheeks and brightened
eyes. She caught the little man warmly by both hands.

“My dear, good Pesca,” she said, “I never doubted your true affection for
Walter—but I am more than ever persuaded of it now!”

“I am sure we are very much obliged to Professor Pesca, for Walter’s
sake,” added Sarah. She half rose, while she spoke, as if to approach the
arm-chair, in her turn; but, observing that Pesca was rapturously kissing
my mother’s hands, looked serious, and resumed her seat. “If the familiar
little man treats my mother in that way, how will he treat me?”
Faces sometimes tell truth; and that was unquestionably the thought in
Sarah’s mind, as she sat down again.

Although I myself was gratefully sensible of the kindness of Pesca’s
motives, my spirits were hardly so much elevated as they ought to have
been by the prospect of future employment now placed before me. When the
Professor had quite done with my mother’s hand, and when I had warmly
thanked him for his interference on my behalf, I asked to be allowed to
look at the note of terms which his respectable patron had drawn up for my
inspection.

Pesca handed me the paper, with a triumphant flourish of the hand.

“Read!” said the little man majestically. “I promise you my friend, the
writing of the golden Papa speaks with a tongue of trumpets for itself.”

The note of terms was plain, straightforward, and comprehensive, at any
rate. It informed me,

First, That Frederick Fairlie, Esquire, of Limmeridge House, Cumberland,
wanted to engage the services of a thoroughly competent drawing-master,
for a period of four months certain.

Secondly, That the duties which the master was expected to perform would
be of a twofold kind. He was to superintend the instruction of two young
ladies in the art of painting in water-colours; and he was to devote his
leisure time, afterwards, to the business of repairing and mounting a
valuable collection of drawings, which had been suffered to fall into a
condition of total neglect.

Thirdly, That the terms offered to the person who should undertake and
properly perform these duties were four guineas a week; that he was to
reside at Limmeridge House; and that he was to be treated there on the
footing of a gentleman.

Fourthly, and lastly, That no person need think of applying for this
situation unless he could furnish the most unexceptionable references to
character and abilities. The references were to be sent to Mr. Fairlie’s
friend in London, who was empowered to conclude all necessary
arrangements. These instructions were followed by the name and address of
Pesca’s employer in Portland Place—and there the note, or
memorandum, ended.

The prospect which this offer of an engagement held out was certainly an
attractive one. The employment was likely to be both easy and agreeable;
it was proposed to me at the autumn time of the year when I was least
occupied; and the terms, judging by my personal experience in my
profession, were surprisingly liberal. I knew this; I knew that I ought to
consider myself very fortunate if I succeeded in securing the offered
employment—and yet, no sooner had I read the memorandum than I felt
an inexplicable unwillingness within me to stir in the matter. I had never
in the whole of my previous experience found my duty and my inclination so
painfully and so unaccountably at variance as I found them now.

”Oh, Walter, your father never had such a chance as this!“ said my mother,
when she had read the note of terms and had handed it back to me.

“Such distinguished people to know,” remarked Sarah, straightening herself
in the chair; “and on such gratifying terms of equality too!”

“Yes, yes; the terms, in every sense, are tempting enough,” I replied
impatiently. “But before I send in my testimonials, I should like a little
time to consider——”

“Consider!” exclaimed my mother. “Why, Walter, what is the matter with
you?”

“Consider!” echoed my sister. “What a very extraordinary thing to say,
under the circumstances!”

“Consider!” chimed in the Professor. “What is there to consider about?
Answer me this! Have you not been complaining of your health, and have you
not been longing for what you call a smack of the country breeze? Well!
there in your hand is the paper that offers you perpetual choking
mouthfuls of country breeze for four months’ time. Is it not so? Ha! Again—you
want money. Well! Is four golden guineas a week nothing?
My-soul-bless-my-soul! only give it to me—and my boots shall
creak like the golden Papa’s, with a sense of the overpowering richness of
the man who walks in them! Four guineas a week, and, more than that, the
charming society of two young misses! and, more than that, your bed, your
breakfast, your dinner, your gorging English teas and lunches and drinks
of foaming beer, all for nothing—why, Walter, my dear good friend—deuce-what-the-deuce!—for
the first time in my life I have not eyes enough in my head to look, and
wonder at you!”

Neither my mother’s evident astonishment at my behaviour, nor Pesca’s
fervid enumeration of the advantages offered to me by the new employment,
had any effect in shaking my unreasonable disinclination to go to
Limmeridge House. After starting all the petty objections that I could
think of to going to Cumberland, and after hearing them answered, one
after another, to my own complete discomfiture, I tried to set up a last
obstacle by asking what was to become of my pupils in London while I was
teaching Mr. Fairlie’s young ladies to sketch from nature. The obvious
answer to this was, that the greater part of them would be away on their
autumn travels, and that the few who remained at home might be confided to
the care of one of my brother drawing-masters, whose pupils I had once
taken off his hands under similar circumstances. My sister reminded me
that this gentleman had expressly placed his services at my disposal,
during the present season, in case I wished to leave town; my mother
seriously appealed to me not to let an idle caprice stand in the way of my
own interests and my own health; and Pesca piteously entreated that I
would not wound him to the heart by rejecting the first grateful offer of
service that he had been able to make to the friend who had saved his
life.

The evident sincerity and affection which inspired these remonstrances
would have influenced any man with an atom of good feeling in his
composition. Though I could not conquer my own unaccountable perversity, I
had at least virtue enough to be heartily ashamed of it, and to end the
discussion pleasantly by giving way, and promising to do all that was
wanted of me.

The rest of the evening passed merrily enough in humorous anticipations of
my coming life with the two young ladies in Cumberland. Pesca, inspired by
our national grog, which appeared to get into his head, in the most
marvellous manner, five minutes after it had gone down his throat,
asserted his claims to be considered a complete Englishman by making a
series of speeches in rapid succession, proposing my mother’s health, my
sister’s health, my health, and the healths, in mass, of Mr. Fairlie and
the two young Misses, pathetically returning thanks himself, immediately
afterwards, for the whole party. “A secret, Walter,” said my little friend
confidentially, as we walked home together. “I am flushed by the
recollection of my own eloquence. My soul bursts itself with ambition. One
of these days I go into your noble Parliament. It is the dream of my whole
life to be Honourable Pesca, M.P.!”

The next morning I sent my testimonials to the Professor’s employer in
Portland Place. Three days passed, and I concluded, with secret
satisfaction, that my papers had not been found sufficiently explicit. On
the fourth day, however, an answer came. It announced that Mr. Fairlie
accepted my services, and requested me to start for Cumberland
immediately. All the necessary instructions for my journey were carefully
and clearly added in a postscript.

I made my arrangements, unwillingly enough, for leaving London early the
next day. Towards evening Pesca looked in, on his way to a dinner-party,
to bid me good-bye.

“I shall dry my tears in your absence,” said the Professor gaily, “with
this glorious thought. It is my auspicious hand that has given the first
push to your fortune in the world. Go, my friend! When your sun shines in
Cumberland (English proverb), in the name of heaven make your hay. Marry
one of the two young Misses; become Honourable Hartright, M.P.; and when
you are on the top of the ladder remember that Pesca, at the bottom, has
done it all!”

I tried to laugh with my little friend over his parting jest, but my
spirits were not to be commanded. Something jarred in me almost painfully
while he was speaking his light farewell words.

When I was left alone again nothing remained to be done but to walk to the
Hampstead cottage and bid my mother and Sarah good-bye.

IV

The heat had been painfully oppressive all day, and it was now a close and
sultry night.

My mother and sister had spoken so many last words, and had begged me to
wait another five minutes so many times, that it was nearly midnight when
the servant locked the garden-gate behind me. I walked forward a few paces
on the shortest way back to London, then stopped and hesitated.

The moon was full and broad in the dark blue starless sky, and the broken
ground of the heath looked wild enough in the mysterious light to be
hundreds of miles away from the great city that lay beneath it. The idea
of descending any sooner than I could help into the heat and gloom of
London repelled me. The prospect of going to bed in my airless chambers,
and the prospect of gradual suffocation, seemed, in my present restless
frame of mind and body, to be one and the same thing. I determined to
stroll home in the purer air by the most roundabout way I could take; to
follow the white winding paths across the lonely heath; and to approach
London through its most open suburb by striking into the Finchley Road,
and so getting back, in the cool of the new morning, by the western side
of the Regent’s Park.

I wound my way down slowly over the heath, enjoying the divine stillness
of the scene, and admiring the soft alternations of light and shade as
they followed each other over the broken ground on every side of me. So
long as I was proceeding through this first and prettiest part of my night
walk my mind remained passively open to the impressions produced by the
view; and I thought but little on any subject—indeed, so far as my
own sensations were concerned, I can hardly say that I thought at all.

But when I had left the heath and had turned into the by-road, where there
was less to see, the ideas naturally engendered by the approaching change
in my habits and occupations gradually drew more and more of my attention
exclusively to themselves. By the time I had arrived at the end of the
road I had become completely absorbed in my own fanciful visions of
Limmeridge House, of Mr. Fairlie, and of the two ladies whose practice in
the art of water-colour painting I was so soon to superintend.

I had now arrived at that particular point of my walk where four roads met—the
road to Hampstead, along which I had returned, the road to Finchley, the
road to West End, and the road back to London. I had mechanically turned
in this latter direction, and was strolling along the lonely high-road—idly
wondering, I remember, what the Cumberland young ladies would look like—when,
in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the
touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me.

I turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening round the handle of my
stick.

There, in the middle of the broad bright high-road—there, as if it
had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven—stood
the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white
garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine, her hand pointing to the
dark cloud over London, as I faced her.

I was far too seriously startled by the suddenness with which this
extraordinary apparition stood before me, in the dead of night and in that
lonely place, to ask what she wanted. The strange woman spoke first.

“Is that the road to London?” she said.

I looked attentively at her, as she put that singular question to me. It
was then nearly one o’clock. All I could discern distinctly by the
moonlight was a colourless, youthful face, meagre and sharp to look at
about the cheeks and chin; large, grave, wistfully attentive eyes;
nervous, uncertain lips; and light hair of a pale, brownish-yellow hue.
There was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it was quiet and
self-controlled, a little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion;
not exactly the manner of a lady, and, at the same time, not the manner of
a woman in the humblest rank of life. The voice, little as I had yet heard
of it, had something curiously still and mechanical in its tones, and the
utterance was remarkably rapid. She held a small bag in her hand: and her
dress—bonnet, shawl, and gown all of white—was, so far as I
could guess, certainly not composed of very delicate or very expensive
materials. Her figure was slight, and rather above the average height—her
gait and actions free from the slightest approach to extravagance. This
was all that I could observe of her in the dim light and under the
perplexingly strange circumstances of our meeting. What sort of a woman
she was, and how she came to be out alone in the high-road, an hour after
midnight, I altogether failed to guess. The one thing of which I felt
certain was, that the grossest of mankind could not have misconstrued her
motive in speaking, even at that suspiciously late hour and in that
suspiciously lonely place.

“Did you hear me?” she said, still quietly and rapidly, and without the
least fretfulness or impatience. “I asked if that was the way to London.”

“Yes,” I replied, “that is the way: it leads to St. John’s Wood and the
Regent’s Park. You must excuse my not answering you before. I was rather
startled by your sudden appearance in the road; and I am, even now, quite
unable to account for it.”

“You don’t suspect me of doing anything wrong, do you? I have done nothing
wrong. I have met with an accident—I am very unfortunate in being
here alone so late. Why do you suspect me of doing wrong?”

She spoke with unnecessary earnestness and agitation, and shrank back from
me several paces. I did my best to reassure her.

“Pray don’t suppose that I have any idea of suspecting you,” I said, “or
any other wish than to be of assistance to you, if I can. I only wondered
at your appearance in the road, because it seemed to me to be empty the
instant before I saw you.”

She turned, and pointed back to a place at the junction of the road to
London and the road to Hampstead, where there was a gap in the hedge.

“I heard you coming,” she said, “and hid there to see what sort of man you
were, before I risked speaking. I doubted and feared about it till you
passed; and then I was obliged to steal after you, and touch you.”

Steal after me and touch me? Why not call to me? Strange, to say the least
of it.

“May I trust you?” she asked. “You don’t think the worse of me because I
have met with an accident?” She stopped in confusion; shifted her bag from
one hand to the other; and sighed bitterly.

The loneliness and helplessness of the woman touched me. The natural
impulse to assist her and to spare her got the better of the judgment, the
caution, the worldly tact, which an older, wiser, and colder man might
have summoned to help him in this strange emergency.

“You may trust me for any harmless purpose,” I said. “If it troubles you
to explain your strange situation to me, don’t think of returning to the
subject again. I have no right to ask you for any explanations. Tell me
how I can help you; and if I can, I will.”

“You are very kind, and I am very, very thankful to have met you.” The
first touch of womanly tenderness that I had heard from her trembled in
her voice as she said the words; but no tears glistened in those large,
wistfully attentive eyes of hers, which were still fixed on me. “I have
only been in London once before,” she went on, more and more rapidly, “and
I know nothing about that side of it, yonder. Can I get a fly, or a
carriage of any kind? Is it too late? I don’t know. If you could show me
where to get a fly—and if you will only promise not to interfere
with me, and to let me leave you, when and how I please—I have a
friend in London who will be glad to receive me—I want nothing else—will
you promise?”

She looked anxiously up and down the road; shifted her bag again from one
hand to the other; repeated the words, “Will you promise?” and looked hard
in my face, with a pleading fear and confusion that it troubled me to see.

What could I do? Here was a stranger utterly and helplessly at my mercy—and
that stranger a forlorn woman. No house was near; no one was passing whom
I could consult; and no earthly right existed on my part to give me a
power of control over her, even if I had known how to exercise it. I trace
these lines, self-distrustfully, with the shadows of after-events
darkening the very paper I write on; and still I say, what could I do?

What I did do, was to try and gain time by questioning her. “Are you sure
that your friend in London will receive you at such a late hour as this?”
I said.

“Quite sure. Only say you will let me leave you when and how I please—only
say you won’t interfere with me. Will you promise?”

As she repeated the words for the third time, she came close to me and
laid her hand, with a sudden gentle stealthiness, on my bosom—a thin
hand; a cold hand (when I removed it with mine) even on that sultry night.
Remember that I was young; remember that the hand which touched me was a
woman’s.

“Will you promise?”

“Yes.”

One word! The little familiar word that is on everybody’s lips, every hour
in the day. Oh me! and I tremble, now, when I write it.

We set our faces towards London, and walked on together in the first still
hour of the new day—I, and this woman, whose name, whose character,
whose story, whose objects in life, whose very presence by my side, at
that moment, were fathomless mysteries to me. It was like a dream. Was I
Walter Hartright? Was this the well-known, uneventful road, where holiday
people strolled on Sundays? Had I really left, little more than an hour
since, the quiet, decent, conventionally domestic atmosphere of my
mother’s cottage? I was too bewildered—too conscious also of a vague
sense of something like self-reproach—to speak to my strange
companion for some minutes. It was her voice again that first broke the
silence between us.

“I want to ask you something,” she said suddenly. “Do you know many people
in London?”

“Yes, a great many.”

“Many men of rank and title?” There was an unmistakable tone of suspicion
in the strange question. I hesitated about answering it.

“Some,” I said, after a moment’s silence.

“Many”—she came to a full stop, and looked me searchingly in the
face—“many men of the rank of Baronet?”

Too much astonished to reply, I questioned her in my turn.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I hope, for my own sake, there is one Baronet that you don’t
know.”

“Will you tell me his name?”

“I can’t—I daren’t—I forget myself when I mention it.” She
spoke loudly and almost fiercely, raised her clenched hand in the air, and
shook it passionately; then, on a sudden, controlled herself again, and
added, in tones lowered to a whisper “Tell me which of them you
know.”

I could hardly refuse to humour her in such a trifle, and I mentioned
three names. Two, the names of fathers of families whose daughters I
taught; one, the name of a bachelor who had once taken me a cruise in his
yacht, to make sketches for him.

“Ah! you don’t know him,” she said, with a sigh of relief. “Are you
a man of rank and title yourself?”

“Far from it. I am only a drawing-master.”

As the reply passed my lips—a little bitterly, perhaps—she
took my arm with the abruptness which characterised all her actions.

“Not a man of rank and title,” she repeated to herself. “Thank God! I may
trust him.”

I had hitherto contrived to master my curiosity out of consideration for
my companion; but it got the better of me now.

“I am afraid you have serious reason to complain of some man of rank and
title?” I said. “I am afraid the baronet, whose name you are unwilling to
mention to me, has done you some grievous wrong? Is he the cause of your
being out here at this strange time of night?”

“Don’t ask me: don’t make me talk of it,” she answered. “I’m not fit now.
I have been cruelly used and cruelly wronged. You will be kinder than
ever, if you will walk on fast, and not speak to me. I sadly want to quiet
myself, if I can.”

We moved forward again at a quick pace; and for half an hour, at least,
not a word passed on either side. From time to time, being forbidden to
make any more inquiries, I stole a look at her face. It was always the
same; the lips close shut, the brow frowning, the eyes looking straight
forward, eagerly and yet absently. We had reached the first houses, and
were close on the new Wesleyan college, before her set features relaxed
and she spoke once more.

“Do you live in London?” she said.

“Yes.” As I answered, it struck me that she might have formed some
intention of appealing to me for assistance or advice, and that I ought to
spare her a possible disappointment by warning her of my approaching
absence from home. So I added, “But to-morrow I shall be away from London
for some time. I am going into the country.”

“Where?” she asked. “North or south?”

“North—to Cumberland.”

“Cumberland!” she repeated the word tenderly. “Ah! I wish I was going there
too. I was once happy in Cumberland.”

I tried again to lift the veil that hung between this woman and me.

“Perhaps you were born,” I said, “in the beautiful Lake country.”

“No,” she answered. “I was born in Hampshire; but I once went to school
for a little while in Cumberland. Lakes? I don’t remember any lakes. It’s
Limmeridge village, and Limmeridge House, I should like to see again.”

It was my turn now to stop suddenly. In the excited state of my curiosity,
at that moment, the chance reference to Mr. Fairlie’s place of residence,
on the lips of my strange companion, staggered me with astonishment.

“Did you hear anybody calling after us?” she asked, looking up and down
the road affrightedly, the instant I stopped.

“No, no. I was only struck by the name of Limmeridge House. I heard it
mentioned by some Cumberland people a few days since.”

“Ah! not my people. Mrs. Fairlie is dead; and her husband is dead;
and their little girl may be married and gone away by this time. I can’t
say who lives at Limmeridge now. If any more are left there of that name,
I only know I love them for Mrs. Fairlie’s sake.”

She seemed about to say more; but while she was speaking, we came within
view of the turnpike, at the top of the Avenue Road. Her hand tightened
round my arm, and she looked anxiously at the gate before us.

“Is the turnpike man looking out?” she asked.

He was not looking out; no one else was near the place when we passed
through the gate. The sight of the gas-lamps and houses seemed to agitate
her, and to make her impatient.

“This is London,” she said. “Do you see any carriage I can get? I am tired
and frightened. I want to shut myself in and be driven away.”

I explained to her that we must walk a little further to get to a
cab-stand, unless we were fortunate enough to meet with an empty vehicle;
and then tried to resume the subject of Cumberland. It was useless. That
idea of shutting herself in, and being driven away, had now got full
possession of her mind. She could think and talk of nothing else.

We had hardly proceeded a third of the way down the Avenue Road when I saw
a cab draw up at a house a few doors below us, on the opposite side of the
way. A gentleman got out and let himself in at the garden door. I hailed
the cab, as the driver mounted the box again. When we crossed the road, my
companion’s impatience increased to such an extent that she almost forced
me to run.

“It’s so late,” she said. “I am only in a hurry because it’s so late.”

“I can’t take you, sir, if you’re not going towards Tottenham Court Road,”
said the driver civilly, when I opened the cab door. “My horse is dead
beat, and I can’t get him no further than the stable.”

“Yes, yes. That will do for me. I’m going that way—I’m going that
way.” She spoke with breathless eagerness, and pressed by me into the cab.

I had assured myself that the man was sober as well as civil before I let
her enter the vehicle. And now, when she was seated inside, I entreated
her to let me see her set down safely at her destination.

“No, no, no,” she said vehemently. “I’m quite safe, and quite happy now.
If you are a gentleman, remember your promise. Let him drive on till I
stop him. Thank you—oh! thank you, thank you!”

My hand was on the cab door. She caught it in hers, kissed it, and pushed
it away. The cab drove off at the same moment—I started into the
road, with some vague idea of stopping it again, I hardly knew why—hesitated
from dread of frightening and distressing her—called, at last, but
not loudly enough to attract the driver’s attention. The sound of the
wheels grew fainter in the distance—the cab melted into the black
shadows on the road—the woman in white was gone.

Ten minutes or more had passed. I was still on the same side of the way;
now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now stopping again absently.
At one moment I found myself doubting the reality of my own adventure; at
another I was perplexed and distressed by an uneasy sense of having done
wrong, which yet left me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done
right. I hardly knew where I was going, or what I meant to do next; I was
conscious of nothing but the confusion of my own thoughts, when I was
abruptly recalled to myself—awakened, I might almost say—by
the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close behind me.

I was on the dark side of the road, in the thick shadow of some garden
trees, when I stopped to look round. On the opposite and lighter side of
the way, a short distance below me, a policeman was strolling along in the
direction of the Regent’s Park.

The carriage passed me—an open chaise driven by two men.

“Stop!” cried one. “There’s a policeman. Let’s ask him.”

The horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards beyond the dark place where
I stood.

“Policeman!” cried the first speaker. “Have you seen a woman pass this
way?”

“What sort of woman, sir?”

“A woman in a lavender-coloured gown——”

“No, no,” interposed the second man. “The clothes we gave her were found
on her bed. She must have gone away in the clothes she wore when she came
to us. In white, policeman. A woman in white.”

“I haven’t seen her, sir.”

“If you or any of your men meet with the woman, stop her, and send her in
careful keeping to that address. I’ll pay all expenses, and a fair reward
into the bargain.”

The policeman looked at the card that was handed down to him.

“Why are we to stop her, sir? What has she done?”

“Done! She has escaped from my Asylum. Don’t forget; a woman in white.
Drive on.”

V

“She has escaped from my Asylum!”

I cannot say with truth that the terrible inference which those words
suggested flashed upon me like a new revelation. Some of the strange
questions put to me by the woman in white, after my ill-considered promise
to leave her free to act as she pleased, had suggested the conclusion
either that she was naturally flighty and unsettled, or that some recent
shock of terror had disturbed the balance of her faculties. But the idea
of absolute insanity which we all associate with the very name of an
Asylum, had, I can honestly declare, never occurred to me, in connection
with her. I had seen nothing, in her language or her actions, to justify
it at the time; and even with the new light thrown on her by the words
which the stranger had addressed to the policeman, I could see nothing to
justify it now.

What had I done? Assisted the victim of the most horrible of all false
imprisonments to escape; or cast loose on the wide world of London an
unfortunate creature, whose actions it was my duty, and every man’s duty,
mercifully to control? I turned sick at heart when the question occurred
to me, and when I felt self-reproachfully that it was asked too late.

In the disturbed state of my mind, it was useless to think of going to
bed, when I at last got back to my chambers in Clement’s Inn. Before many
hours elapsed it would be necessary to start on my journey to Cumberland.
I sat down and tried, first to sketch, then to read—but the woman in
white got between me and my pencil, between me and my book. Had the
forlorn creature come to any harm? That was my first thought, though I
shrank selfishly from confronting it. Other thoughts followed, on which it
was less harrowing to dwell. Where had she stopped the cab? What had
become of her now? Had she been traced and captured by the men in the
chaise? Or was she still capable of controlling her own actions; and were
we two following our widely parted roads towards one point in the
mysterious future, at which we were to meet once more?

It was a relief when the hour came to lock my door, to bid farewell to
London pursuits, London pupils, and London friends, and to be in movement
again towards new interests and a new life. Even the bustle and confusion
at the railway terminus, so wearisome and bewildering at other times,
roused me and did me good.

My travelling instructions directed me to go to Carlisle, and then to
diverge by a branch railway which ran in the direction of the coast. As a
misfortune to begin with, our engine broke down between Lancaster and
Carlisle. The delay occasioned by this accident caused me to be too late
for the branch train, by which I was to have gone on immediately. I had to
wait some hours; and when a later train finally deposited me at the
nearest station to Limmeridge House, it was past ten, and the night was so
dark that I could hardly see my way to the pony-chaise which Mr. Fairlie
had ordered to be in waiting for me.

The driver was evidently discomposed by the lateness of my arrival. He was
in that state of highly respectful sulkiness which is peculiar to English
servants. We drove away slowly through the darkness in perfect silence.
The roads were bad, and the dense obscurity of the night increased the
difficulty of getting over the ground quickly. It was, by my watch, nearly
an hour and a half from the time of our leaving the station before I heard
the sound of the sea in the distance, and the crunch of our wheels on a
smooth gravel drive. We had passed one gate before entering the drive, and
we passed another before we drew up at the house. I was received by a
solemn man-servant out of livery, was informed that the family had retired
for the night, and was then led into a large and lofty room where my
supper was awaiting me, in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a
lonesome mahogany wilderness of dining-table.

I was too tired and out of spirits to eat or drink much, especially with
the solemn servant waiting on me as elaborately as if a small dinner party
had arrived at the house instead of a solitary man. In a quarter of an
hour I was ready to be taken up to my bedchamber. The solemn servant
conducted me into a prettily furnished room—said, “Breakfast at nine
o’clock, sir”—looked all round him to see that everything was in its
proper place, and noiselessly withdrew.

“What shall I see in my dreams to-night?” I thought to myself, as I put
out the candle; “the woman in white? or the unknown inhabitants of this
Cumberland mansion?” It was a strange sensation to be sleeping in the
house, like a friend of the family, and yet not to know one of the
inmates, even by sight!

VI

When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind, the sea opened before
me joyously under the broad August sunlight, and the distant coast of
Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of melting blue.

The view was such a surprise, and such a change to me, after my weary
London experience of brick and mortar landscape, that I seemed to burst
into a new life and a new set of thoughts the moment I looked at it. A
confused sensation of having suddenly lost my familiarity with the past,
without acquiring any additional clearness of idea in reference to the
present or the future, took possession of my mind. Circumstances that were
but a few days old faded back in my memory, as if they had happened months
and months since. Pesca’s quaint announcement of the means by which he had
procured me my present employment; the farewell evening I had passed with
my mother and sister; even my mysterious adventure on the way home from
Hampstead—had all become like events which might have occurred at
some former epoch of my existence. Although the woman in white was still
in my mind, the image of her seemed to have grown dull and faint already.

A little before nine o’clock, I descended to the ground-floor of the
house. The solemn man-servant of the night before met me wandering among
the passages, and compassionately showed me the way to the breakfast-room.

My first glance round me, as the man opened the door, disclosed a
well-furnished breakfast-table, standing in the middle of a long room,
with many windows in it. I looked from the table to the window farthest
from me, and saw a lady standing at it, with her back turned towards me.
The instant my eyes rested on her, I was struck by the rare beauty of her
form, and by the unaffected grace of her attitude. Her figure was tall,
yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on
her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the
eyes of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its
natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully undeformed by stays. She
had not heard my entrance into the room; and I allowed myself the luxury
of admiring her for a few moments, before I moved one of the chairs near
me, as the least embarrassing means of attracting her attention. She
turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her
limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the
room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left
the window—and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward
a few steps—and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached
nearer—and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words
fail me to express), The lady is ugly!

Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly
contradicted—never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more
strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. The
lady’s complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip
was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw;
prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair,
growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression—bright,
frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be
altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and
pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is
beauty incomplete. To see such a face as this set on shoulders that a
sculptor would have longed to model—to be charmed by the modest
graces of action through which the symmetrical limbs betrayed their beauty
when they moved, and then to be almost repelled by the masculine form and
masculine look of the features in which the perfectly shaped figure ended—was
to feel a sensation oddly akin to the helpless discomfort familiar to us
all in sleep, when we recognise yet cannot reconcile the anomalies and
contradictions of a dream.

“Mr. Hartright?” said the lady interrogatively, her dark face lighting up
with a smile, and softening and growing womanly the moment she began to
speak. “We resigned all hope of you last night, and went to bed as usual.
Accept my apologies for our apparent want of attention; and allow me to
introduce myself as one of your pupils. Shall we shake hands? I suppose we
must come to it sooner or later—and why not sooner?”

These odd words of welcome were spoken in a clear, ringing, pleasant
voice. The offered hand—rather large, but beautifully formed—was
given to me with the easy, unaffected self-reliance of a highly-bred
woman. We sat down together at the breakfast-table in as cordial and
customary a manner as if we had known each other for years, and had met at
Limmeridge House to talk over old times by previous appointment.

“I hope you come here good-humouredly determined to make the best of your
position,” continued the lady. “You will have to begin this morning by
putting up with no other company at breakfast than mine. My sister is in
her own room, nursing that essentially feminine malady, a slight headache;
and her old governess, Mrs. Vesey, is charitably attending on her with
restorative tea. My uncle, Mr. Fairlie, never joins us at any of our
meals: he is an invalid, and keeps bachelor state in his own apartments.
There is nobody else in the house but me. Two young ladies have been
staying here, but they went away yesterday, in despair; and no wonder. All
through their visit (in consequence of Mr. Fairlie’s invalid condition) we
produced no such convenience in the house as a flirtable, danceable,
small-talkable creature of the male sex; and the consequence was, we did
nothing but quarrel, especially at dinner-time. How can you expect four
women to dine together alone every day, and not quarrel? We are such
fools, we can’t entertain each other at table. You see I don’t think much
of my own sex, Mr. Hartright—which will you have, tea or coffee?—no
woman does think much of her own sex, although few of them confess it as
freely as I do. Dear me, you look puzzled. Why? Are you wondering what you
will have for breakfast? or are you surprised at my careless way of
talking? In the first case, I advise you, as a friend, to have nothing to
do with that cold ham at your elbow, and to wait till the omelette comes
in. In the second case, I will give you some tea to compose your spirits,
and do all a woman can (which is very little, by-the-bye) to hold my
tongue.”

She handed me my cup of tea, laughing gaily. Her light flow of talk, and
her lively familiarity of manner with a total stranger, were accompanied
by an unaffected naturalness and an easy inborn confidence in herself and
her position, which would have secured her the respect of the most
audacious man breathing. While it was impossible to be formal and reserved
in her company, it was more than impossible to take the faintest vestige
of a liberty with her, even in thought. I felt this instinctively, even
while I caught the infection of her own bright gaiety of spirits—even
while I did my best to answer her in her own frank, lively way.

“Yes, yes,” she said, when I had suggested the only explanation I could
offer, to account for my perplexed looks, “I understand. You are such a
perfect stranger in the house, that you are puzzled by my familiar
references to the worthy inhabitants. Natural enough: I ought to have
thought of it before. At any rate, I can set it right now. Suppose I begin
with myself, so as to get done with that part of the subject as soon as
possible? My name is Marian Halcombe; and I am as inaccurate as women
usually are, in calling Mr. Fairlie my uncle, and Miss Fairlie my sister.
My mother was twice married: the first time to Mr. Halcombe, my father;
the second time to Mr. Fairlie, my half-sister’s father. Except that we
are both orphans, we are in every respect as unlike each other as
possible. My father was a poor man, and Miss Fairlie’s father was a rich
man. I have got nothing, and she has a fortune. I am dark and ugly, and
she is fair and pretty. Everybody thinks me crabbed and odd (with perfect
justice); and everybody thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more
justice still). In short, she is an angel; and I am—— Try some
of that marmalade, Mr. Hartright, and finish the sentence, in the name of
female propriety, for yourself. What am I to tell you about Mr. Fairlie?
Upon my honour, I hardly know. He is sure to send for you after breakfast,
and you can study him for yourself. In the meantime, I may inform you,
first, that he is the late Mr. Fairlie’s younger brother; secondly, that
he is a single man; and thirdly, that he is Miss Fairlie’s guardian. I
won’t live without her, and she can’t live without me; and that is how I
come to be at Limmeridge House. My sister and I are honestly fond of each
other; which, you will say, is perfectly unaccountable, under the
circumstances, and I quite agree with you—but so it is. You must
please both of us, Mr. Hartright, or please neither of us: and, what is
still more trying, you will be thrown entirely upon our society. Mrs.
Vesey is an excellent person, who possesses all the cardinal virtues, and
counts for nothing; and Mr. Fairlie is too great an invalid to be a
companion for anybody. I don’t know what is the matter with him, and the
doctors don’t know what is the matter with him, and he doesn’t know
himself what is the matter with him. We all say it’s on the nerves, and we
none of us know what we mean when we say it. However, I advise you to
humour his little peculiarities, when you see him to-day. Admire his
collection of coins, prints, and water-colour drawings, and you will win
his heart. Upon my word, if you can be contented with a quiet country
life, I don’t see why you should not get on very well here. From breakfast
to lunch, Mr. Fairlie’s drawings will occupy you. After lunch, Miss
Fairlie and I shoulder our sketch-books, and go out to misrepresent
Nature, under your directions. Drawing is her favourite whim, mind,
not mine. Women can’t draw—their minds are too flighty, and their
eyes are too inattentive. No matter—my sister likes it; so I waste
paint and spoil paper, for her sake, as composedly as any woman in
England. As for the evenings, I think we can help you through them. Miss
Fairlie plays delightfully. For my own poor part, I don’t know one note of
music from the other; but I can match you at chess, backgammon, ecarte,
and (with the inevitable female drawbacks) even at billiards as well. What
do you think of the programme? Can you reconcile yourself to our quiet,
regular life? or do you mean to be restless, and secretly thirst for
change and adventure, in the humdrum atmosphere of Limmeridge House?”

She had run on thus far, in her gracefully bantering way, with no other
interruptions on my part than the unimportant replies which politeness
required of me. The turn of the expression, however, in her last question,
or rather the one chance word, “adventure,” lightly as it fell from her
lips, recalled my thoughts to my meeting with the woman in white, and
urged me to discover the connection which the stranger’s own reference to
Mrs. Fairlie informed me must once have existed between the nameless
fugitive from the Asylum, and the former mistress of Limmeridge House.

“Even if I were the most restless of mankind,” I said, “I should be in no
danger of thirsting after adventures for some time to come. The very night
before I arrived at this house, I met with an adventure; and the wonder
and excitement of it, I can assure you, Miss Halcombe, will last me for
the whole term of my stay in Cumberland, if not for a much longer period.”

“You don’t say so, Mr. Hartright! May I hear it?”

“You have a claim to hear it. The chief person in the adventure was a
total stranger to me, and may perhaps be a total stranger to you; but she
certainly mentioned the name of the late Mrs. Fairlie in terms of the
sincerest gratitude and regard.”

“Mentioned my mother’s name! You interest me indescribably. Pray go on.”

I at once related the circumstances under which I had met the woman in
white, exactly as they had occurred; and I repeated what she had said to
me about Mrs. Fairlie and Limmeridge House, word for word.

Miss Halcombe’s bright resolute eyes looked eagerly into mine, from the
beginning of the narrative to the end. Her face expressed vivid interest
and astonishment, but nothing more. She was evidently as far from knowing
of any clue to the mystery as I was myself.

“Are you quite sure of those words referring to my mother?” she asked.

“Quite sure,” I replied. “Whoever she may be, the woman was once at school
in the village of Limmeridge, was treated with especial kindness by Mrs.
Fairlie, and, in grateful remembrance of that kindness, feels an
affectionate interest in all surviving members of the family. She knew
that Mrs. Fairlie and her husband were both dead; and she spoke of Miss
Fairlie as if they had known each other when they were children.”

“You said, I think, that she denied belonging to this place?”

“Yes, she told me she came from Hampshire.”

“And you entirely failed to find out her name?”

“Entirely.”

“Very strange. I think you were quite justified, Mr. Hartright, in giving
the poor creature her liberty, for she seems to have done nothing in your
presence to show herself unfit to enjoy it. But I wish you had been a
little more resolute about finding out her name. We must really clear up
this mystery, in some way. You had better not speak of it yet to Mr.
Fairlie, or to my sister. They are both of them, I am certain, quite as
ignorant of who the woman is, and of what her past history in connection
with us can be, as I am myself. But they are also, in widely different
ways, rather nervous and sensitive; and you would only fidget one and
alarm the other to no purpose. As for myself, I am all aflame with
curiosity, and I devote my whole energies to the business of discovery
from this moment. When my mother came here, after her second marriage, she
certainly established the village school just as it exists at the present
time. But the old teachers are all dead, or gone elsewhere; and no
enlightenment is to be hoped for from that quarter. The only other
alternative I can think of——”

At this point we were interrupted by the entrance of the servant, with a
message from Mr. Fairlie, intimating that he would be glad to see me, as
soon as I had done breakfast.

“Wait in the hall,” said Miss Halcombe, answering the servant for me, in
her quick, ready way. “Mr. Hartright will come out directly. I was about
to say,” she went on, addressing me again, “that my sister and I have a
large collection of my mother’s letters, addressed to my father and to
hers. In the absence of any other means of getting information, I will
pass the morning in looking over my mother’s correspondence with Mr.
Fairlie. He was fond of London, and was constantly away from his country
home; and she was accustomed, at such times, to write and report to him
how things went on at Limmeridge. Her letters are full of references to
the school in which she took so strong an interest; and I think it more
than likely that I may have discovered something when we meet again. The
luncheon hour is two, Mr. Hartright. I shall have the pleasure of
introducing you to my sister by that time, and we will occupy the
afternoon in driving round the neighbourhood and showing you all our pet
points of view. Till two o’clock, then, farewell.”

She nodded to me with the lively grace, the delightful refinement of
familiarity, which characterised all that she did and all that she said;
and disappeared by a door at the lower end of the room. As soon as she had
left me, I turned my steps towards the hall, and followed the servant, on
my way, for the first time, to the presence of Mr. Fairlie.

VII

My conductor led me upstairs into a passage which took us back to the
bedchamber in which I had slept during the past night; and opening the
door next to it, begged me to look in.

“I have my master’s orders to show you your own sitting-room, sir,” said
the man, “and to inquire if you approve of the situation and the light.”

I must have been hard to please, indeed, if I had not approved of the
room, and of everything about it. The bow-window looked out on the same
lovely view which I had admired, in the morning, from my bedroom. The
furniture was the perfection of luxury and beauty; the table in the centre
was bright with gaily bound books, elegant conveniences for writing, and
beautiful flowers; the second table, near the window, was covered with all
the necessary materials for mounting water-colour drawings, and had a
little easel attached to it, which I could expand or fold up at will; the
walls were hung with gaily tinted chintz; and the floor was spread with
Indian matting in maize-colour and red. It was the prettiest and most
luxurious little sitting-room I had ever seen; and I admired it with the
warmest enthusiasm.

The solemn servant was far too highly trained to betray the slightest
satisfaction. He bowed with icy deference when my terms of eulogy were all
exhausted, and silently opened the door for me to go out into the passage
again.

We turned a corner, and entered a long second passage, ascended a short
flight of stairs at the end, crossed a small circular upper hall, and
stopped in front of a door covered with dark baize. The servant opened
this door, and led me on a few yards to a second; opened that also, and
disclosed two curtains of pale sea-green silk hanging before us; raised
one of them noiselessly; softly uttered the words, “Mr. Hartright,” and
left me.

I found myself in a large, lofty room, with a magnificent carved ceiling,
and with a carpet over the floor, so thick and soft that it felt like
piles of velvet under my feet. One side of the room was occupied by a long
book-case of some rare inlaid wood that was quite new to me. It was not
more than six feet high, and the top was adorned with statuettes in
marble, ranged at regular distances one from the other. On the opposite
side stood two antique cabinets; and between them, and above them, hung a
picture of the Virgin and Child, protected by glass, and bearing Raphael’s
name on the gilt tablet at the bottom of the frame. On my right hand and
on my left, as I stood inside the door, were chiffoniers and little stands
in buhl and marquetterie, loaded with figures in Dresden china, with rare
vases, ivory ornaments, and toys and curiosities that sparkled at all
points with gold, silver, and precious stones. At the lower end of the
room, opposite to me, the windows were concealed and the sunlight was
tempered by large blinds of the same pale sea-green colour as the curtains
over the door. The light thus produced was deliciously soft, mysterious,
and subdued; it fell equally upon all the objects in the room; it helped
to intensify the deep silence, and the air of profound seclusion that
possessed the place; and it surrounded, with an appropriate halo of
repose, the solitary figure of the master of the house, leaning back,
listlessly composed, in a large easy-chair, with a reading-easel fastened
on one of its arms, and a little table on the other.

If a man’s personal appearance, when he is out of his dressing-room, and
when he has passed forty, can be accepted as a safe guide to his time of
life—which is more than doubtful—Mr. Fairlie’s age, when I saw
him, might have been reasonably computed at over fifty and under sixty
years. His beardless face was thin, worn, and transparently pale, but not
wrinkled; his nose was high and hooked; his eyes were of a dim greyish
blue, large, prominent, and rather red round the rims of the eyelids; his
hair was scanty, soft to look at, and of that light sandy colour which is
the last to disclose its own changes towards grey. He was dressed in a
dark frock-coat, of some substance much thinner than cloth, and in
waistcoat and trousers of spotless white. His feet were effeminately
small, and were clad in buff-coloured silk stockings, and little womanish
bronze-leather slippers. Two rings adorned his white delicate hands, the
value of which even my inexperienced observation detected to be all but
priceless. Upon the whole, he had a frail, languidly-fretful, over-refined
look—something singularly and unpleasantly delicate in its
association with a man, and, at the same time, something which could by no
possibility have looked natural and appropriate if it had been transferred
to the personal appearance of a woman. My morning’s experience of Miss
Halcombe had predisposed me to be pleased with everybody in the house; but
my sympathies shut themselves up resolutely at the first sight of Mr.
Fairlie.

On approaching nearer to him, I discovered that he was not so entirely
without occupation as I had at first supposed. Placed amid the other rare
and beautiful objects on a large round table near him, was a dwarf cabinet
in ebony and silver, containing coins of all shapes and sizes, set out in
little drawers lined with dark purple velvet. One of these drawers lay on
the small table attached to his chair; and near it were some tiny
jeweller’s brushes, a wash-leather “stump,” and a little bottle of liquid,
all waiting to be used in various ways for the removal of any accidental
impurities which might be discovered on the coins. His frail white fingers
were listlessly toying with something which looked, to my uninstructed
eyes, like a dirty pewter medal with ragged edges, when I advanced within
a respectful distance of his chair, and stopped to make my bow.

“So glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr. Hartright,” he said in a
querulous, croaking voice, which combined, in anything but an agreeable
manner, a discordantly high tone with a drowsily languid utterance. “Pray
sit down. And don’t trouble yourself to move the chair, please. In the
wretched state of my nerves, movement of any kind is exquisitely painful
to me. Have you seen your studio? Will it do?”

“I have just come from seeing the room, Mr. Fairlie; and I assure you——”

He stopped me in the middle of the sentence, by closing his eyes, and
holding up one of his white hands imploringly. I paused in astonishment;
and the croaking voice honoured me with this explanation—

“Pray excuse me. But could you contrive to speak in a lower key? In
the wretched state of my nerves, loud sound of any kind is indescribable
torture to me. You will pardon an invalid? I only say to you what the
lamentable state of my health obliges me to say to everybody. Yes. And you
really like the room?”

“I could wish for nothing prettier and nothing more comfortable,” I
answered, dropping my voice, and beginning to discover already that Mr.
Fairlie’s selfish affectation and Mr. Fairlie’s wretched nerves meant one
and the same thing.

“So glad. You will find your position here, Mr. Hartright, properly
recognised. There is none of the horrid English barbarity of feeling about
the social position of an artist in this house. So much of my early life
has been passed abroad, that I have quite cast my insular skin in that
respect. I wish I could say the same of the gentry—detestable word,
but I suppose I must use it—of the gentry in the neighbourhood. They
are sad Goths in Art, Mr. Hartright. People, I do assure you, who would
have opened their eyes in astonishment, if they had seen Charles the Fifth
pick up Titian’s brush for him. Do you mind putting this tray of coins
back in the cabinet, and giving me the next one to it? In the wretched
state of my nerves, exertion of any kind is unspeakably disagreeable to
me. Yes. Thank you.”

As a practical commentary on the liberal social theory which he had just
favoured me by illustrating, Mr. Fairlie’s cool request rather amused me.
I put back one drawer and gave him the other, with all possible
politeness. He began trifling with the new set of coins and the little
brushes immediately; languidly looking at them and admiring them all the
time he was speaking to me.

“A thousand thanks and a thousand excuses. Do you like coins? Yes. So glad
we have another taste in common besides our taste for Art. Now, about the
pecuniary arrangements between us—do tell me—are they
satisfactory?”

“Most satisfactory, Mr. Fairlie.”

“So glad. And—what next? Ah! I remember. Yes. In reference to the
consideration which you are good enough to accept for giving me the
benefit of your accomplishments in art, my steward will wait on you at the
end of the first week, to ascertain your wishes. And—what next?
Curious, is it not? I had a great deal more to say: and I appear to have
quite forgotten it. Do you mind touching the bell? In that corner. Yes.
Thank you.”

I rang; and a new servant noiselessly made his appearance—a
foreigner, with a set smile and perfectly brushed hair—a valet every
inch of him.

“Louis,” said Mr. Fairlie, dreamily dusting the tips of his fingers with
one of the tiny brushes for the coins, “I made some entries in my
tablettes this morning. Find my tablettes. A thousand pardons, Mr.
Hartright, I’m afraid I bore you.”

As he wearily closed his eyes again, before I could answer, and as he did
most assuredly bore me, I sat silent, and looked up at the Madonna and
Child by Raphael. In the meantime, the valet left the room, and returned
shortly with a little ivory book. Mr. Fairlie, after first relieving
himself by a gentle sigh, let the book drop open with one hand, and held
up the tiny brush with the other, as a sign to the servant to wait for
further orders.

“Yes. Just so!” said Mr. Fairlie, consulting the tablettes. “Louis, take
down that portfolio.” He pointed, as he spoke, to several portfolios
placed near the window, on mahogany stands. “No. Not the one with the
green back—that contains my Rembrandt etchings, Mr. Hartright. Do
you like etchings? Yes? So glad we have another taste in common. The
portfolio with the red back, Louis. Don’t drop it! You have no idea of the
tortures I should suffer, Mr. Hartright, if Louis dropped that portfolio.
Is it safe on the chair? Do you think it safe, Mr. Hartright? Yes?
So glad. Will you oblige me by looking at the drawings, if you really
think they are quite safe. Louis, go away. What an ass you are. Don’t you
see me holding the tablettes? Do you suppose I want to hold them? Then why
not relieve me of the tablettes without being told? A thousand pardons,
Mr. Hartright; servants are such asses, are they not? Do tell me—what
do you think of the drawings? They have come from a sale in a shocking
state—I thought they smelt of horrid dealers’ and brokers’ fingers
when I looked at them last. Can you undertake them?”

Although my nerves were not delicate enough to detect the odour of
plebeian fingers which had offended Mr. Fairlie’s nostrils, my taste was
sufficiently educated to enable me to appreciate the value of the
drawings, while I turned them over. They were, for the most part, really
fine specimens of English water-colour art; and they had deserved much
better treatment at the hands of their former possessor than they appeared
to have received.

“The drawings,” I answered, “require careful straining and mounting; and,
in my opinion, they are well worth——”

“I beg your pardon,” interposed Mr. Fairlie. “Do you mind my closing my
eyes while you speak? Even this light is too much for them. Yes?”

“I was about to say that the drawings are well worth all the time and
trouble——”

Mr. Fairlie suddenly opened his eyes again, and rolled them with an
expression of helpless alarm in the direction of the window.

“I entreat you to excuse me, Mr. Hartright,” he said in a feeble flutter.
“But surely I hear some horrid children in the garden—my private
garden—below?”

“I can’t say, Mr. Fairlie. I heard nothing myself.”

“Oblige me—you have been so very good in humouring my poor nerves—oblige
me by lifting up a corner of the blind. Don’t let the sun in on me, Mr.
Hartright! Have you got the blind up? Yes? Then will you be so very kind
as to look into the garden and make quite sure?”

I complied with this new request. The garden was carefully walled in, all
round. Not a human creature, large or small, appeared in any part of the
sacred seclusion. I reported that gratifying fact to Mr. Fairlie.

“A thousand thanks. My fancy, I suppose. There are no children, thank
Heaven, in the house; but the servants (persons born without nerves) will
encourage the children from the village. Such brats—oh, dear me,
such brats! Shall I confess it, Mr. Hartright?—I sadly want a reform
in the construction of children. Nature’s only idea seems to be to make
them machines for the production of incessant noise. Surely our delightful
Raffaello’s conception is infinitely preferable?”

He pointed to the picture of the Madonna, the upper part of which
represented the conventional cherubs of Italian Art, celestially provided
with sitting accommodation for their chins, on balloons of buff-coloured
cloud.

“Quite a model family!” said Mr. Fairlie, leering at the cherubs. “Such
nice round faces, and such nice soft wings, and—nothing else. No
dirty little legs to run about on, and no noisy little lungs to scream
with. How immeasurably superior to the existing construction! I will close
my eyes again, if you will allow me. And you really can manage the
drawings? So glad. Is there anything else to settle? if there is, I think
I have forgotten it. Shall we ring for Louis again?”

Being, by this time, quite as anxious, on my side, as Mr. Fairlie
evidently was on his, to bring the interview to a speedy conclusion, I
thought I would try to render the summoning of the servant unnecessary, by
offering the requisite suggestion on my own responsibility.

“The only point, Mr. Fairlie, that remains to be discussed,” I said,
“refers, I think, to the instruction in sketching which I am engaged to
communicate to the two young ladies.”

“Ah! just so,” said Mr. Fairlie. “I wish I felt strong enough to go into
that part of the arrangement—but I don’t. The ladies who profit by
your kind services, Mr. Hartright, must settle, and decide, and so on, for
themselves. My niece is fond of your charming art. She knows just enough
about it to be conscious of her own sad defects. Please take pains with
her. Yes. Is there anything else? No. We quite understand each other—don’t
we? I have no right to detain you any longer from your delightful pursuit—have
I? So pleasant to have settled everything—such a sensible relief to
have done business. Do you mind ringing for Louis to carry the portfolio
to your own room?”

“I will carry it there myself, Mr. Fairlie, if you will allow me.”

“Will you really? Are you strong enough? How nice to be so strong! Are you
sure you won’t drop it? So glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr.
Hartright. I am such a sufferer that I hardly dare hope to enjoy much of
your society. Would you mind taking great pains not to let the doors bang,
and not to drop the portfolio? Thank you. Gently with the curtains, please—the
slightest noise from them goes through me like a knife. Yes. Good
morning!”

When the sea-green curtains were closed, and when the two baize doors were
shut behind me, I stopped for a moment in the little circular hall beyond,
and drew a long, luxurious breath of relief. It was like coming to the
surface of the water after deep diving, to find myself once more on the
outside of Mr. Fairlie’s room.

As soon as I was comfortably established for the morning in my pretty
little studio, the first resolution at which I arrived was to turn my
steps no more in the direction of the apartments occupied by the master of
the house, except in the very improbable event of his honouring me with a
special invitation to pay him another visit. Having settled this
satisfactory plan of future conduct in reference to Mr. Fairlie, I soon
recovered the serenity of temper of which my employer’s haughty
familiarity and impudent politeness had, for the moment, deprived me. The
remaining hours of the morning passed away pleasantly enough, in looking
over the drawings, arranging them in sets, trimming their ragged edges,
and accomplishing the other necessary preparations in anticipation of the
business of mounting them. I ought, perhaps, to have made more progress
than this; but, as the luncheon-time drew near, I grew restless and
unsettled, and felt unable to fix my attention on work, even though that
work was only of the humble manual kind.

At two o’clock I descended again to the breakfast-room, a little
anxiously. Expectations of some interest were connected with my
approaching reappearance in that part of the house. My introduction to
Miss Fairlie was now close at hand; and, if Miss Halcombe’s search through
her mother’s letters had produced the result which she anticipated, the
time had come for clearing up the mystery of the woman in white.

VIII

When I entered the room, I found Miss Halcombe and an elderly lady seated
at the luncheon-table.

The elderly lady, when I was presented to her, proved to be Miss Fairlie’s
former governess, Mrs. Vesey, who had been briefly described to me by my
lively companion at the breakfast-table, as possessed of “all the cardinal
virtues, and counting for nothing.” I can do little more than offer my
humble testimony to the truthfulness of Miss Halcombe’s sketch of the old
lady’s character. Mrs. Vesey looked the personification of human composure
and female amiability. A calm enjoyment of a calm existence beamed in
drowsy smiles on her plump, placid face. Some of us rush through life, and
some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey sat through life. Sat
in the house, early and late; sat in the garden; sat in unexpected
window-seats in passages; sat (on a camp-stool) when her friends tried to
take her out walking; sat before she looked at anything, before she talked
of anything, before she answered Yes, or No, to the commonest question—always
with the same serene smile on her lips, the same vacantly-attentive turn
of the head, the same snugly-comfortable position of her hands and arms,
under every possible change of domestic circumstances. A mild, a
compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any
chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour
of her birth. Nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in
generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must
surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between
the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time. Starting
from this point of view, it will always remain my private persuasion that
Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that
the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in
the mind of the Mother of us all.

“Now, Mrs. Vesey,” said Miss Halcombe, looking brighter, sharper, and
readier than ever, by contrast with the undemonstrative old lady at her
side, “what will you have? A cutlet?”

Mrs. Vesey crossed her dimpled hands on the edge of the table, smiled
placidly, and said, “Yes, dear.”

“What is that opposite Mr. Hartright? Boiled chicken, is it not? I thought
you liked boiled chicken better than cutlet, Mrs. Vesey?”

Mrs. Vesey took her dimpled hands off the edge of the table and crossed
them on her lap instead; nodded contemplatively at the boiled chicken, and
said, “Yes, dear.”

“Well, but which will you have, to-day? Shall Mr. Hartright give you some
chicken? or shall I give you some cutlet?”

Mrs. Vesey put one of her dimpled hands back again on the edge of the
table; hesitated drowsily, and said, “Which you please, dear.”

“Mercy on me! it’s a question for your taste, my good lady, not for mine.
Suppose you have a little of both? and suppose you begin with the chicken,
because Mr. Hartright looks devoured by anxiety to carve for you.”

Mrs. Vesey put the other dimpled hand back on the edge of the table;
brightened dimly one moment; went out again the next; bowed obediently,
and said, “If you please, sir.”

Surely a mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady!
But enough, perhaps, for the present, of Mrs. Vesey.

All this time, there were no signs of Miss Fairlie. We finished our
luncheon; and still she never appeared. Miss Halcombe, whose quick eye
nothing escaped, noticed the looks that I cast, from time to time, in the
direction of the door.

“I understand you, Mr. Hartright,” she said; “you are wondering what has
become of your other pupil. She has been downstairs, and has got over her
headache; but has not sufficiently recovered her appetite to join us at
lunch. If you will put yourself under my charge, I think I can undertake
to find her somewhere in the garden.”

She took up a parasol lying on a chair near her, and led the way out, by a
long window at the bottom of the room, which opened on to the lawn. It is
almost unnecessary to say that we left Mrs. Vesey still seated at the
table, with her dimpled hands still crossed on the edge of it; apparently
settled in that position for the rest of the afternoon.

As we crossed the lawn, Miss Halcombe looked at me significantly, and
shook her head.

“That mysterious adventure of yours,” she said, “still remains involved in
its own appropriate midnight darkness. I have been all the morning looking
over my mother’s letters, and I have made no discoveries yet. However,
don’t despair, Mr. Hartright. This is a matter of curiosity; and you have
got a woman for your ally. Under such conditions success is certain,
sooner or later. The letters are not exhausted. I have three packets still
left, and you may confidently rely on my spending the whole evening over
them.”

Here, then, was one of my anticipations of the morning still unfulfilled.
I began to wonder, next, whether my introduction to Miss Fairlie would
disappoint the expectations that I had been forming of her since
breakfast-time.

“And how did you get on with Mr. Fairlie?” inquired Miss Halcombe, as we
left the lawn and turned into a shrubbery. “Was he particularly nervous
this morning? Never mind considering about your answer, Mr. Hartright. The
mere fact of your being obliged to consider is enough for me. I see in
your face that he was particularly nervous; and, as I am amiably
unwilling to throw you into the same condition, I ask no more.”

We turned off into a winding path while she was speaking, and approached a
pretty summer-house, built of wood, in the form of a miniature Swiss
chalet. The one room of the summer-house, as we ascended the steps of the
door, was occupied by a young lady. She was standing near a rustic table,
looking out at the inland view of moor and hill presented by a gap in the
trees, and absently turning over the leaves of a little sketch-book that
lay at her side. This was Miss Fairlie.

How can I describe her? How can I separate her from my own sensations, and
from all that has happened in the later time? How can I see her again as
she looked when my eyes first rested on her—as she should look, now,
to the eyes that are about to see her in these pages?

The water-colour drawing that I made of Laura Fairlie, at an after period,
in the place and attitude in which I first saw her, lies on my desk while
I write. I look at it, and there dawns upon me brightly, from the dark
greenish-brown background of the summer-house, a light, youthful figure,
clothed in a simple muslin dress, the pattern of it formed by broad
alternate stripes of delicate blue and white. A scarf of the same material
sits crisply and closely round her shoulders, and a little straw hat of
the natural colour, plainly and sparingly trimmed with ribbon to match the
gown, covers her head, and throws its soft pearly shadow over the upper
part of her face. Her hair is of so faint and pale a brown—not
flaxen, and yet almost as light; not golden, and yet almost as glossy—that
it nearly melts, here and there, into the shadow of the hat. It is plainly
parted and drawn back over her ears, and the line of it ripples naturally
as it crosses her forehead. The eyebrows are rather darker than the hair;
and the eyes are of that soft, limpid, turquoise blue, so often sung by
the poets, so seldom seen in real life. Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes
in form—large and tender and quietly thoughtful—but beautiful
above all things in the clear truthfulness of look that dwells in their
inmost depths, and shines through all their changes of expression with the
light of a purer and a better world. The charm—most gently and yet
most distinctly expressed—which they shed over the whole face, so
covers and transforms its little natural human blemishes elsewhere, that
it is difficult to estimate the relative merits and defects of the other
features. It is hard to see that the lower part of the face is too
delicately refined away towards the chin to be in full and fair proportion
with the upper part; that the nose, in escaping the aquiline bend (always
hard and cruel in a woman, no matter how abstractedly perfect it may be),
has erred a little in the other extreme, and has missed the ideal
straightness of line; and that the sweet, sensitive lips are subject to a
slight nervous contraction, when she smiles, which draws them upward a
little at one corner, towards the cheek. It might be possible to note
these blemishes in another woman’s face but it is not easy to dwell on
them in hers, so subtly are they connected with all that is individual and
characteristic in her expression, and so closely does the expression
depend for its full play and life, in every other feature, on the moving
impulse of the eyes.

Does my poor portrait of her, my fond, patient labour of long and happy
days, show me these things? Ah, how few of them are in the dim mechanical
drawing, and how many in the mind with which I regard it! A fair, delicate
girl, in a pretty light dress, trifling with the leaves of a sketch-book,
while she looks up from it with truthful, innocent blue eyes—that is
all the drawing can say; all, perhaps, that even the deeper reach of
thought and pen can say in their language, either. The woman who first
gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a
void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she
appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for
thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the
senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. The mystery
which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all
expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own
souls. Then, and then only, has it passed beyond the narrow region on
which light falls, in this world, from the pencil and the pen.

Think of her as you thought of the first woman who quickened the pulses
within you that the rest of her sex had no art to stir. Let the kind,
candid blue eyes meet yours, as they met mine, with the one matchless look
which we both remember so well. Let her voice speak the music that you
once loved best, attuned as sweetly to your ear as to mine. Let her
footstep, as she comes and goes, in these pages, be like that other
footstep to whose airy fall your own heart once beat time. Take her as the
visionary nursling of your own fancy; and she will grow upon you, all the
more clearly, as the living woman who dwells in mine.

Among the sensations that crowded on me, when my eyes first looked upon
her—familiar sensations which we all know, which spring to life in
most of our hearts, die again in so many, and renew their bright existence
in so few—there was one that troubled and perplexed me: one that
seemed strangely inconsistent and unaccountably out of place in Miss
Fairlie’s presence.

Mingling with the vivid impression produced by the charm of her fair face
and head, her sweet expression, and her winning simplicity of manner, was
another impression, which, in a shadowy way, suggested to me the idea of
something wanting. At one time it seemed like something wanting in her:
at another, like something wanting in myself, which hindered me from
understanding her as I ought. The impression was always strongest in the
most contradictory manner, when she looked at me; or, in other words, when
I was most conscious of the harmony and charm of her face, and yet, at the
same time, most troubled by the sense of an incompleteness which it was
impossible to discover. Something wanting, something wanting—and
where it was, and what it was, I could not say.

The effect of this curious caprice of fancy (as I thought it then) was not
of a nature to set me at my ease, during a first interview with Miss
Fairlie. The few kind words of welcome which she spoke found me hardly
self-possessed enough to thank her in the customary phrases of reply.
Observing my hesitation, and no doubt attributing it, naturally enough, to
some momentary shyness on my part, Miss Halcombe took the business of
talking, as easily and readily as usual, into her own hands.

“Look there, Mr. Hartright,” she said, pointing to the sketch-book on the
table, and to the little delicate wandering hand that was still trifling
with it. “Surely you will acknowledge that your model pupil is found at
last? The moment she hears that you are in the house, she seizes her
inestimable sketch-book, looks universal Nature straight in the face, and
longs to begin!”

Miss Fairlie laughed with a ready good-humour, which broke out as brightly
as if it had been part of the sunshine above us, over her lovely face.

“I must not take credit to myself where no credit is due,” she said, her
clear, truthful blue eyes looking alternately at Miss Halcombe and at me.
“Fond as I am of drawing, I am so conscious of my own ignorance that I am
more afraid than anxious to begin. Now I know you are here, Mr. Hartright,
I find myself looking over my sketches, as I used to look over my lessons
when I was a little girl, and when I was sadly afraid that I should turn
out not fit to be heard.”

She made the confession very prettily and simply, and, with quaint,
childish earnestness, drew the sketch-book away close to her own side of
the table. Miss Halcombe cut the knot of the little embarrassment
forthwith, in her resolute, downright way.

“Good, bad, or indifferent,” she said, “the pupil’s sketches must pass
through the fiery ordeal of the master’s judgment—and there’s an end
of it. Suppose we take them with us in the carriage, Laura, and let Mr.
Hartright see them, for the first time, under circumstances of perpetual
jolting and interruption? If we can only confuse him all through the
drive, between Nature as it is, when he looks up at the view, and Nature
as it is not when he looks down again at our sketch-books, we shall drive
him into the last desperate refuge of paying us compliments, and shall
slip through his professional fingers with our pet feathers of vanity all
unruffled.”

“I hope Mr. Hartright will pay me no compliments,” said Miss
Fairlie, as we all left the summer-house.

“May I venture to inquire why you express that hope?” I asked.

“Because I shall believe all that you say to me,” she answered simply.

In those few words she unconsciously gave me the key to her whole
character: to that generous trust in others which, in her nature, grew
innocently out of the sense of her own truth. I only knew it intuitively
then. I know it by experience now.

We merely waited to rouse good Mrs. Vesey from the place which she still
occupied at the deserted luncheon-table, before we entered the open
carriage for our promised drive. The old lady and Miss Halcombe occupied
the back seat, and Miss Fairlie and I sat together in front, with the
sketch-book open between us, fairly exhibited at last to my professional
eyes. All serious criticism on the drawings, even if I had been disposed
to volunteer it, was rendered impossible by Miss Halcombe’s lively
resolution to see nothing but the ridiculous side of the Fine Arts, as
practised by herself, her sister, and ladies in general. I can remember
the conversation that passed far more easily than the sketches that I
mechanically looked over. That part of the talk, especially, in which Miss
Fairlie took any share, is still as vividly impressed on my memory as if I
had heard it only a few hours ago.

Yes! let me acknowledge that on this first day I let the charm of her
presence lure me from the recollection of myself and my position. The most
trifling of the questions that she put to me, on the subject of using her
pencil and mixing her colours; the slightest alterations of expression in
the lovely eyes that looked into mine with such an earnest desire to learn
all that I could teach, and to discover all that I could show, attracted
more of my attention than the finest view we passed through, or the
grandest changes of light and shade, as they flowed into each other over
the waving moorland and the level beach. At any time, and under any
circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how little real
hold the objects of the natural world amid which we live can gain on our
hearts and minds? We go to Nature for comfort in trouble, and sympathy in
joy, only in books. Admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world,
which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even
in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature. As
children, we none of us possess it. No uninstructed man or woman possesses
it. Those whose lives are most exclusively passed amid the ever-changing
wonders of sea and land are also those who are most universally insensible
to every aspect of Nature not directly associated with the human interest
of their calling. Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth
we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we all
learn as an Art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised by any
of us except when our minds are most indolent and most unoccupied. How
much share have the attractions of Nature ever had in the pleasurable or
painful interests and emotions of ourselves or our friends? What space do
they ever occupy in the thousand little narratives of personal experience
which pass every day by word of mouth from one of us to the other? All
that our minds can compass, all that our hearts can learn, can be
accomplished with equal certainty, equal profit, and equal satisfaction to
ourselves, in the poorest as in the richest prospect that the face of the
earth can show. There is surely a reason for this want of inborn sympathy
between the creature and the creation around it, a reason which may
perhaps be found in the widely-differing destinies of man and his earthly
sphere. The grandest mountain prospect that the eye can range over is
appointed to annihilation. The smallest human interest that the pure heart
can feel is appointed to immortality.

We had been out nearly three hours, when the carriage again passed through
the gates of Limmeridge House.

On our way back I had let the ladies settle for themselves the first point
of view which they were to sketch, under my instructions, on the afternoon
of the next day. When they withdrew to dress for dinner, and when I was
alone again in my little sitting-room, my spirits seemed to leave me on a
sudden. I felt ill at ease and dissatisfied with myself, I hardly knew
why. Perhaps I was now conscious for the first time of having enjoyed our
drive too much in the character of a guest, and too little in the
character of a drawing-master. Perhaps that strange sense of something
wanting, either in Miss Fairlie or in myself, which had perplexed me when
I was first introduced to her, haunted me still. Anyhow, it was a relief
to my spirits when the dinner-hour called me out of my solitude, and took
me back to the society of the ladies of the house.

I was struck, on entering the drawing-room, by the curious contrast,
rather in material than in colour, of the dresses which they now wore.
While Mrs. Vesey and Miss Halcombe were richly clad (each in the manner
most becoming to her age), the first in silver-grey, and the second in
that delicate primrose-yellow colour which matches so well with a dark
complexion and black hair, Miss Fairlie was unpretendingly and almost
poorly dressed in plain white muslin. It was spotlessly pure: it was
beautifully put on; but still it was the sort of dress which the wife or
daughter of a poor man might have worn, and it made her, so far as
externals went, look less affluent in circumstances than her own
governess. At a later period, when I learnt to know more of Miss Fairlie’s
character, I discovered that this curious contrast, on the wrong side, was
due to her natural delicacy of feeling and natural intensity of aversion
to the slightest personal display of her own wealth. Neither Mrs. Vesey
nor Miss Halcombe could ever induce her to let the advantage in dress
desert the two ladies who were poor, to lean to the side of the one lady
who was rich.

When the dinner was over we returned together to the drawing-room.
Although Mr. Fairlie (emulating the magnificent condescension of the
monarch who had picked up Titian’s brush for him) had instructed his
butler to consult my wishes in relation to the wine that I might prefer
after dinner, I was resolute enough to resist the temptation of sitting in
solitary grandeur among bottles of my own choosing, and sensible enough to
ask the ladies’ permission to leave the table with them habitually, on the
civilised foreign plan, during the period of my residence at Limmeridge
House.

The drawing-room, to which we had now withdrawn for the rest of the
evening, was on the ground-floor, and was of the same shape and size as
the breakfast-room. Large glass doors at the lower end opened on to a
terrace, beautifully ornamented along its whole length with a profusion of
flowers. The soft, hazy twilight was just shading leaf and blossom alike
into harmony with its own sober hues as we entered the room, and the sweet
evening scent of the flowers met us with its fragrant welcome through the
open glass doors. Good Mrs. Vesey (always the first of the party to sit
down) took possession of an arm-chair in a corner, and dozed off
comfortably to sleep. At my request Miss Fairlie placed herself at the
piano. As I followed her to a seat near the instrument, I saw Miss
Halcombe retire into a recess of one of the side windows, to proceed with
the search through her mother’s letters by the last quiet rays of the
evening light.

How vividly that peaceful home-picture of the drawing-room comes back to
me while I write! From the place where I sat I could see Miss Halcombe’s
graceful figure, half of it in soft light, half in mysterious shadow,
bending intently over the letters in her lap; while, nearer to me, the
fair profile of the player at the piano was just delicately defined
against the faintly-deepening background of the inner wall of the room.
Outside, on the terrace, the clustering flowers and long grasses and
creepers waved so gently in the light evening air, that the sound of their
rustling never reached us. The sky was without a cloud, and the dawning
mystery of moonlight began to tremble already in the region of the eastern
heaven. The sense of peace and seclusion soothed all thought and feeling
into a rapt, unearthly repose; and the balmy quiet, that deepened ever
with the deepening light, seemed to hover over us with a gentler influence
still, when there stole upon it from the piano the heavenly tenderness of
the music of Mozart. It was an evening of sights and sounds never to
forget.

We all sat silent in the places we had chosen—Mrs. Vesey still
sleeping, Miss Fairlie still playing, Miss Halcombe still reading—till
the light failed us. By this time the moon had stolen round to the
terrace, and soft, mysterious rays of light were slanting already across
the lower end of the room. The change from the twilight obscurity was so
beautiful that we banished the lamps, by common consent, when the servant
brought them in, and kept the large room unlighted, except by the glimmer
of the two candles at the piano.

For half an hour more the music still went on. After that the beauty of
the moonlight view on the terrace tempted Miss Fairlie out to look at it,
and I followed her. When the candles at the piano had been lighted Miss
Halcombe had changed her place, so as to continue her examination of the
letters by their assistance. We left her, on a low chair, at one side of
the instrument, so absorbed over her reading that she did not seem to
notice when we moved.

We had been out on the terrace together, just in front of the glass doors,
hardly so long as five minutes, I should think; and Miss Fairlie was, by
my advice, just tying her white handkerchief over her head as a precaution
against the night air—when I heard Miss Halcombe’s voice—low,
eager, and altered from its natural lively tone—pronounce my name.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “will you come here for a minute? I want to
speak to you.”

I entered the room again immediately. The piano stood about half-way down
along the inner wall. On the side of the instrument farthest from the
terrace Miss Halcombe was sitting with the letters scattered on her lap,
and with one in her hand selected from them, and held close to the candle.
On the side nearest to the terrace there stood a low ottoman, on which I
took my place. In this position I was not far from the glass doors, and I
could see Miss Fairlie plainly, as she passed and repassed the opening on
to the terrace, walking slowly from end to end of it in the full radiance
of the moon.

“I want you to listen while I read the concluding passages in this
letter,” said Miss Halcombe. “Tell me if you think they throw any light
upon your strange adventure on the road to London. The letter is addressed
by my mother to her second husband, Mr. Fairlie, and the date refers to a
period of between eleven and twelve years since. At that time Mr. and Mrs.
Fairlie, and my half-sister Laura, had been living for years in this
house; and I was away from them completing my education at a school in
Paris.”

She looked and spoke earnestly, and, as I thought, a little uneasily as
well. At the moment when she raised the letter to the candle before
beginning to read it, Miss Fairlie passed us on the terrace, looked in for
a moment, and seeing that we were engaged, slowly walked on.

Miss Halcombe began to read as follows:—

“‘You will be tired, my dear Philip, of hearing perpetually about my
schools and my scholars. Lay the blame, pray, on the dull uniformity of
life at Limmeridge, and not on me. Besides, this time I have something
really interesting to tell you about a new scholar.

“‘You know old Mrs. Kempe at the village shop. Well, after years of
ailing, the doctor has at last given her up, and she is dying slowly day
by day. Her only living relation, a sister, arrived last week to take care
of her. This sister comes all the way from Hampshire—her name is
Mrs. Catherick. Four days ago Mrs. Catherick came here to see me, and
brought her only child with her, a sweet little girl about a year older
than our darling Laura——’”

As the last sentence fell from the reader’s lips, Miss Fairlie passed us
on the terrace once more. She was softly singing to herself one of the
melodies which she had been playing earlier in the evening. Miss Halcombe
waited till she had passed out of sight again, and then went on with the
letter—

“‘Mrs. Catherick is a decent, well-behaved, respectable woman;
middle-aged, and with the remains of having been moderately, only
moderately, nice-looking. There is something in her manner and in her
appearance, however, which I can’t make out. She is reserved about herself
to the point of downright secrecy, and there is a look in her face—I
can’t describe it—which suggests to me that she has something on her
mind. She is altogether what you would call a walking mystery. Her errand
at Limmeridge House, however, was simple enough. When she left Hampshire
to nurse her sister, Mrs. Kempe, through her last illness, she had been
obliged to bring her daughter with her, through having no one at home to
take care of the little girl. Mrs. Kempe may die in a week’s time, or may
linger on for months; and Mrs. Catherick’s object was to ask me to let her
daughter, Anne, have the benefit of attending my school, subject to the
condition of her being removed from it to go home again with her mother,
after Mrs. Kempe’s death. I consented at once, and when Laura and I went
out for our walk, we took the little girl (who is just eleven years old)
to the school that very day.’”

Once more Miss Fairlie’s figure, bright and soft in its snowy muslin dress—her
face prettily framed by the white folds of the handkerchief which she had
tied under her chin—passed by us in the moonlight. Once more Miss
Halcombe waited till she was out of sight, and then went on—

“‘I have taken a violent fancy, Philip, to my new scholar, for a reason
which I mean to keep till the last for the sake of surprising you. Her
mother having told me as little about the child as she told me of herself,
I was left to discover (which I did on the first day when we tried her at
lessons) that the poor little thing’s intellect is not developed as it
ought to be at her age. Seeing this I had her up to the house the next
day, and privately arranged with the doctor to come and watch her and
question her, and tell me what he thought. His opinion is that she will
grow out of it. But he says her careful bringing-up at school is a matter
of great importance just now, because her unusual slowness in acquiring
ideas implies an unusual tenacity in keeping them, when they are once
received into her mind. Now, my love, you must not imagine, in your
off-hand way, that I have been attaching myself to an idiot. This poor
little Anne Catherick is a sweet, affectionate, grateful girl, and says
the quaintest, prettiest things (as you shall judge by an instance), in
the most oddly sudden, surprised, half-frightened way. Although she is
dressed very neatly, her clothes show a sad want of taste in colour and
pattern. So I arranged, yesterday, that some of our darling Laura’s old
white frocks and white hats should be altered for Anne Catherick,
explaining to her that little girls of her complexion looked neater and
better all in white than in anything else. She hesitated and seemed
puzzled for a minute, then flushed up, and appeared to understand. Her
little hand clasped mine suddenly. She kissed it, Philip, and said (oh, so
earnestly!), “I will always wear white as long as I live. It will help me
to remember you, ma’am, and to think that I am pleasing you still, when I
go away and see you no more.” This is only one specimen of the quaint
things she says so prettily. Poor little soul! She shall have a stock of
white frocks, made with good deep tucks, to let out for her as she grows——’“

Miss Halcombe paused, and looked at me across the piano.

“Did the forlorn woman whom you met in the high-road seem young?” she
asked. “Young enough to be two- or three-and-twenty?”

“Yes, Miss Halcombe, as young as that.”

“And she was strangely dressed, from head to foot, all in white?”

“All in white.”

While the answer was passing my lips Miss Fairlie glided into view on the
terrace for the third time. Instead of proceeding on her walk, she
stopped, with her back turned towards us, and, leaning on the balustrade
of the terrace, looked down into the garden beyond. My eyes fixed upon the
white gleam of her muslin gown and head-dress in the moonlight, and a
sensation, for which I can find no name—a sensation that quickened
my pulse, and raised a fluttering at my heart—began to steal over
me.

“All in white?” Miss Halcombe repeated. “The most important sentences in
the letter, Mr. Hartright, are those at the end, which I will read to you
immediately. But I can’t help dwelling a little upon the coincidence of
the white costume of the woman you met, and the white frocks which
produced that strange answer from my mother’s little scholar. The doctor
may have been wrong when he discovered the child’s defects of intellect,
and predicted that she would ‘grow out of them.’ She may never have grown
out of them, and the old grateful fancy about dressing in white, which was
a serious feeling to the girl, may be a serious feeling to the woman
still.”

I said a few words in answer—I hardly know what. All my attention
was concentrated on the white gleam of Miss Fairlie’s muslin dress.

“Listen to the last sentences of the letter,” said Miss Halcombe. “I think
they will surprise you.”

As she raised the letter to the light of the candle, Miss Fairlie turned
from the balustrade, looked doubtfully up and down the terrace, advanced a
step towards the glass doors, and then stopped, facing us.

Meanwhile Miss Halcombe read me the last sentences to which she had
referred—

“‘And now, my love, seeing that I am at the end of my paper, now for the
real reason, the surprising reason, for my fondness for little Anne
Catherick. My dear Philip, although she is not half so pretty, she is,
nevertheless, by one of those extraordinary caprices of accidental
resemblance which one sometimes sees, the living likeness, in her hair,
her complexion, the colour of her eyes, and the shape of her face——’”

I started up from the ottoman before Miss Halcombe could pronounce the
next words. A thrill of the same feeling which ran through me when the
touch was laid upon my shoulder on the lonely high-road chilled me again.

There stood Miss Fairlie, a white figure, alone in the moonlight; in her
attitude, in the turn of her head, in her complexion, in the shape of her
face, the living image, at that distance and under those circumstances, of
the woman in white! The doubt which had troubled my mind for hours and
hours past flashed into conviction in an instant. That “something wanting”
was my own recognition of the ominous likeness between the fugitive from
the asylum and my pupil at Limmeridge House.

“You see it!” said Miss Halcombe. She dropped the useless letter, and her
eyes flashed as they met mine. “You see it now, as my mother saw it eleven
years since!”

“I see it—more unwillingly than I can say. To associate that
forlorn, friendless, lost woman, even by an accidental likeness only, with
Miss Fairlie, seems like casting a shadow on the future of the bright
creature who stands looking at us now. Let me lose the impression again as
soon as possible. Call her in, out of the dreary moonlight—pray call
her in!”

“Mr. Hartright, you surprise me. Whatever women may be, I thought that
men, in the nineteenth century, were above superstition.”

“Pray call her in!”

“Hush, hush! She is coming of her own accord. Say nothing in her presence.
Let this discovery of the likeness be kept a secret between you and me.
Come in, Laura, come in, and wake Mrs. Vesey with the piano. Mr. Hartright
is petitioning for some more music, and he wants it, this time, of the
lightest and liveliest kind.”

IX

So ended my eventful first day at Limmeridge House.

Miss Halcombe and I kept our secret. After the discovery of the likeness
no fresh light seemed destined to break over the mystery of the woman in
white. At the first safe opportunity Miss Halcombe cautiously led her
half-sister to speak of their mother, of old times, and of Anne Catherick.
Miss Fairlie’s recollections of the little scholar at Limmeridge were,
however, only of the most vague and general kind. She remembered the
likeness between herself and her mother’s favourite pupil, as something
which had been supposed to exist in past times; but she did not refer to
the gift of the white dresses, or to the singular form of words in which
the child had artlessly expressed her gratitude for them. She remembered
that Anne had remained at Limmeridge for a few months only, and had then
left it to go back to her home in Hampshire; but she could not say whether
the mother and daughter had ever returned, or had ever been heard of
afterwards. No further search, on Miss Halcombe’s part, through the few
letters of Mrs. Fairlie’s writing which she had left unread, assisted in
clearing up the uncertainties still left to perplex us. We had identified
the unhappy woman whom I had met in the night-time with Anne Catherick—we
had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably defective
condition of the poor creature’s intellect with the peculiarity of her
being dressed all in white, and with the continuance, in her maturer
years, of her childish gratitude towards Mrs. Fairlie—and there, so
far as we knew at that time, our discoveries had ended.

The days passed on, the weeks passed on, and the track of the golden
autumn wound its bright way visibly through the green summer of the trees.
Peaceful, fast-flowing, happy time! my story glides by you now as swiftly
as you once glided by me. Of all the treasures of enjoyment that you
poured so freely into my heart, how much is left me that has purpose and
value enough to be written on this page? Nothing but the saddest of all
confessions that a man can make—the confession of his own folly.

The secret which that confession discloses should be told with little
effort, for it has indirectly escaped me already. The poor weak words,
which have failed to describe Miss Fairlie, have succeeded in betraying
the sensations she awakened in me. It is so with us all. Our words are
giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

I loved her.

Ah! how well I know all the sadness and all the mockery that is contained
in those three words. I can sigh over my mournful confession with the
tenderest woman who reads it and pities me. I can laugh at it as bitterly
as the hardest man who tosses it from him in contempt. I loved her! Feel
for me, or despise me, I confess it with the same immovable resolution to
own the truth.

Was there no excuse for me? There was some excuse to be found, surely, in
the conditions under which my term of hired service was passed at
Limmeridge House.

My morning hours succeeded each other calmly in the quiet and seclusion of
my own room. I had just work enough to do, in mounting my employer’s
drawings, to keep my hands and eyes pleasurably employed, while my mind
was left free to enjoy the dangerous luxury of its own unbridled thoughts.
A perilous solitude, for it lasted long enough to enervate, not long
enough to fortify me. A perilous solitude, for it was followed by
afternoons and evenings spent, day after day and week after week alone in
the society of two women, one of whom possessed all the accomplishments of
grace, wit, and high-breeding, the other all the charms of beauty,
gentleness, and simple truth, that can purify and subdue the heart of man.
Not a day passed, in that dangerous intimacy of teacher and pupil, in
which my hand was not close to Miss Fairlie’s; my cheek, as we bent
together over her sketch-book, almost touching hers. The more attentively
she watched every movement of my brush, the more closely I was breathing
the perfume of her hair, and the warm fragrance of her breath. It was part
of my service to live in the very light of her eyes—at one time to
be bending over her, so close to her bosom as to tremble at the thought of
touching it; at another, to feel her bending over me, bending so close to
see what I was about, that her voice sank low when she spoke to me, and
her ribbons brushed my cheek in the wind before she could draw them back.

The evenings which followed the sketching excursions of the afternoon
varied, rather than checked, these innocent, these inevitable
familiarities. My natural fondness for the music which she played with
such tender feeling, such delicate womanly taste, and her natural
enjoyment of giving me back, by the practice of her art, the pleasure
which I had offered to her by the practice of mine, only wove another tie
which drew us closer and closer to one another. The accidents of
conversation; the simple habits which regulated even such a little thing
as the position of our places at table; the play of Miss Halcombe’s
ever-ready raillery, always directed against my anxiety as teacher, while
it sparkled over her enthusiasm as pupil; the harmless expression of poor
Mrs. Vesey’s drowsy approval, which connected Miss Fairlie and me as two
model young people who never disturbed her—every one of these
trifles, and many more, combined to fold us together in the same domestic
atmosphere, and to lead us both insensibly to the same hopeless end.

I should have remembered my position, and have put myself secretly on my
guard. I did so, but not till it was too late. All the discretion, all the
experience, which had availed me with other women, and secured me against
other temptations, failed me with her. It had been my profession, for
years past, to be in this close contact with young girls of all ages, and
of all orders of beauty. I had accepted the position as part of my calling
in life; I had trained myself to leave all the sympathies natural to my
age in my employer’s outer hall, as coolly as I left my umbrella there
before I went upstairs. I had long since learnt to understand, composedly
and as a matter of course, that my situation in life was considered a
guarantee against any of my female pupils feeling more than the most
ordinary interest in me, and that I was admitted among beautiful and
captivating women much as a harmless domestic animal is admitted among
them. This guardian experience I had gained early; this guardian
experience had sternly and strictly guided me straight along my own poor
narrow path, without once letting me stray aside, to the right hand or to
the left. And now I and my trusty talisman were parted for the first time.
Yes, my hardly-earned self-control was as completely lost to me as if I
had never possessed it; lost to me, as it is lost every day to other men,
in other critical situations, where women are concerned. I know, now, that
I should have questioned myself from the first. I should have asked why
any room in the house was better than home to me when she entered it, and
barren as a desert when she went out again—why I always noticed and
remembered the little changes in her dress that I had noticed and
remembered in no other woman’s before—why I saw her, heard her, and
touched her (when we shook hands at night and morning) as I had never
seen, heard, and touched any other woman in my life? I should have looked
into my own heart, and found this new growth springing up there, and
plucked it out while it was young. Why was this easiest, simplest work of
self-culture always too much for me? The explanation has been written
already in the three words that were many enough, and plain enough, for my
confession. I loved her.

The days passed, the weeks passed; it was approaching the third month of
my stay in Cumberland. The delicious monotony of life in our calm
seclusion flowed on with me, like a smooth stream with a swimmer who
glides down the current. All memory of the past, all thought of the
future, all sense of the falseness and hopelessness of my own position,
lay hushed within me into deceitful rest. Lulled by the Syren-song that my
own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all
sound of danger, I drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks. The
warning that aroused me at last, and startled me into sudden,
self-accusing consciousness of my own weakness, was the plainest, the
truest, the kindest of all warnings, for it came silently from her.

We had parted one night as usual. No word had fallen from my lips, at that
time or at any time before it, that could betray me, or startle her into
sudden knowledge of the truth. But when we met again in the morning, a
change had come over her—a change that told me all.

I shrank then—I shrink still—from invading the innermost
sanctuary of her heart, and laying it open to others, as I have laid open
my own. Let it be enough to say that the time when she first surprised my
secret was, I firmly believe, the time when she first surprised her own,
and the time, also, when she changed towards me in the interval of one
night. Her nature, too truthful to deceive others, was too noble to
deceive itself. When the doubt that I had hushed asleep first laid its
weary weight on her heart, the true face owned all, and said, in its own
frank, simple language—I am sorry for him; I am sorry for myself.

It said this, and more, which I could not then interpret. I understood but
too well the change in her manner, to greater kindness and quicker
readiness in interpreting all my wishes, before others—to constraint
and sadness, and nervous anxiety to absorb herself in the first occupation
she could seize on, whenever we happened to be left together alone. I
understood why the sweet sensitive lips smiled so rarely and so
restrainedly now, and why the clear blue eyes looked at me, sometimes with
the pity of an angel, sometimes with the innocent perplexity of a child.
But the change meant more than this. There was a coldness in her hand,
there was an unnatural immobility in her face, there was in all her
movements the mute expression of constant fear and clinging self-reproach.
The sensations that I could trace to herself and to me, the unacknowledged
sensations that we were feeling in common, were not these. There were
certain elements of the change in her that were still secretly drawing us
together, and others that were, as secretly, beginning to drive us apart.

In my doubt and perplexity, in my vague suspicion of something hidden
which I was left to find by my own unaided efforts, I examined Miss
Halcombe’s looks and manner for enlightenment. Living in such intimacy as
ours, no serious alteration could take place in any one of us which did
not sympathetically affect the others. The change in Miss Fairlie was
reflected in her half-sister. Although not a word escaped Miss Halcombe
which hinted at an altered state of feeling towards myself, her
penetrating eyes had contracted a new habit of always watching me.
Sometimes the look was like suppressed anger, sometimes like suppressed
dread, sometimes like neither—like nothing, in short, which I could
understand. A week elapsed, leaving us all three still in this position of
secret constraint towards one another. My situation, aggravated by the
sense of my own miserable weakness and forgetfulness of myself, now too
late awakened in me, was becoming intolerable. I felt that I must cast off
the oppression under which I was living, at once and for ever—yet
how to act for the best, or what to say first, was more than I could tell.

From this position of helplessness and humiliation I was rescued by Miss
Halcombe. Her lips told me the bitter, the necessary, the unexpected
truth; her hearty kindness sustained me under the shock of hearing it; her
sense and courage turned to its right use an event which threatened the
worst that could happen, to me and to others, in Limmeridge House.

X

It was on a Thursday in the week, and nearly at the end of the third month
of my sojourn in Cumberland.

In the morning, when I went down into the breakfast-room at the usual
hour, Miss Halcombe, for the first time since I had known her, was absent
from her customary place at the table.

Miss Fairlie was out on the lawn. She bowed to me, but did not come in.
Not a word had dropped from my lips, or from hers, that could unsettle
either of us—and yet the same unacknowledged sense of embarrassment
made us shrink alike from meeting one another alone. She waited on the
lawn, and I waited in the breakfast-room, till Mrs. Vesey or Miss Halcombe
came in. How quickly I should have joined her: how readily we should have
shaken hands, and glided into our customary talk, only a fortnight ago.

In a few minutes Miss Halcombe entered. She had a preoccupied look, and
she made her apologies for being late rather absently.

“I have been detained,” she said, “by a consultation with Mr. Fairlie on a
domestic matter which he wished to speak to me about.”

Miss Fairlie came in from the garden, and the usual morning greeting
passed between us. Her hand struck colder to mine than ever. She did not
look at me, and she was very pale. Even Mrs. Vesey noticed it when she
entered the room a moment after.

“I suppose it is the change in the wind,” said the old lady. “The winter
is coming—ah, my love, the winter is coming soon!”

In her heart and in mine it had come already!

Our morning meal—once so full of pleasant good-humoured discussion
of the plans for the day—was short and silent. Miss Fairlie seemed
to feel the oppression of the long pauses in the conversation, and looked
appealingly to her sister to fill them up. Miss Halcombe, after once or
twice hesitating and checking herself, in a most uncharacteristic manner,
spoke at last.

“I have seen your uncle this morning, Laura,” she said. “He thinks the
purple room is the one that ought to be got ready, and he confirms what I
told you. Monday is the day—not Tuesday.”

While these words were being spoken Miss Fairlie looked down at the table
beneath her. Her fingers moved nervously among the crumbs that were
scattered on the cloth. The paleness on her cheeks spread to her lips, and
the lips themselves trembled visibly. I was not the only person present
who noticed this. Miss Halcombe saw it, too, and at once set us the
example of rising from table.

Mrs. Vesey and Miss Fairlie left the room together. The kind sorrowful
blue eyes looked at me, for a moment, with the prescient sadness of a
coming and a long farewell. I felt the answering pang in my own heart—the
pang that told me I must lose her soon, and love her the more unchangeably
for the loss.

I turned towards the garden when the door had closed on her. Miss Halcombe
was standing with her hat in her hand, and her shawl over her arm, by the
large window that led out to the lawn, and was looking at me attentively.

“Have you any leisure time to spare,” she asked, “before you begin to work
in your own room?”

“Certainly, Miss Halcombe. I have always time at your service.”

“I want to say a word to you in private, Mr. Hartright. Get your hat and
come out into the garden. We are not likely to be disturbed there at this
hour in the morning.”

As we stepped out on to the lawn, one of the under-gardeners—a mere
lad—passed us on his way to the house, with a letter in his hand.
Miss Halcombe stopped him.

“Is that letter for me?” she asked.

“Nay, miss; it’s just said to be for Miss Fairlie,” answered the lad,
holding out the letter as he spoke.

Miss Halcombe took it from him and looked at the address.

“A strange handwriting,” she said to herself. “Who can Laura’s
correspondent be? Where did you get this?” she continued, addressing the
gardener.

“Well, miss,” said the lad, “I just got it from a woman.”

“What woman?”

“A woman well stricken in age.”

“Oh, an old woman. Any one you knew?”

“I canna’ tak’ it on mysel’ to say that she was other than a stranger to
me.”

“Which way did she go?”

“That gate,” said the under-gardener, turning with great deliberation
towards the south, and embracing the whole of that part of England with
one comprehensive sweep of his arm.

“Curious,” said Miss Halcombe; “I suppose it must be a begging-letter.
There,” she added, handing the letter back to the lad, “take it to the
house, and give it to one of the servants. And now, Mr. Hartright, if you
have no objection, let us walk this way.”

She led me across the lawn, along the same path by which I had followed
her on the day after my arrival at Limmeridge.

At the little summer-house, in which Laura Fairlie and I had first seen
each other, she stopped, and broke the silence which she had steadily
maintained while we were walking together.

“What I have to say to you I can say here.”

With those words she entered the summer-house, took one of the chairs at
the little round table inside, and signed to me to take the other. I
suspected what was coming when she spoke to me in the breakfast-room; I
felt certain of it now.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “I am going to begin by making a frank avowal
to you. I am going to say—without phrase-making, which I detest, or
paying compliments, which I heartily despise—that I have come, in
the course of your residence with us, to feel a strong friendly regard for
you. I was predisposed in your favour when you first told me of your
conduct towards that unhappy woman whom you met under such remarkable
circumstances. Your management of the affair might not have been prudent,
but it showed the self-control, the delicacy, and the compassion of a man
who was naturally a gentleman. It made me expect good things from you, and
you have not disappointed my expectations.”

She paused—but held up her hand at the same time, as a sign that she
awaited no answer from me before she proceeded. When I entered the
summer-house, no thought was in me of the woman in white. But now, Miss
Halcombe’s own words had put the memory of my adventure back in my mind.
It remained there throughout the interview—remained, and not without
a result.

“As your friend,” she proceeded, “I am going to tell you, at once, in my
own plain, blunt, downright language, that I have discovered your secret—without
help or hint, mind, from any one else. Mr. Hartright, you have
thoughtlessly allowed yourself to form an attachment—a serious and
devoted attachment I am afraid—to my sister Laura. I don’t put you
to the pain of confessing it in so many words, because I see and know that
you are too honest to deny it. I don’t even blame you—I pity you for
opening your heart to a hopeless affection. You have not attempted to take
any underhand advantage—you have not spoken to my sister in secret.
You are guilty of weakness and want of attention to your own best
interests, but of nothing worse. If you had acted, in any single respect,
less delicately and less modestly, I should have told you to leave the
house without an instant’s notice, or an instant’s consultation of
anybody. As it is, I blame the misfortune of your years and your position—I
don’t blame you. Shake hands—I have given you pain; I am
going to give you more, but there is no help for it—shake hands with
your friend, Marian Halcombe, first.”

The sudden kindness—the warm, high-minded, fearless sympathy which
met me on such mercifully equal terms, which appealed with such delicate
and generous abruptness straight to my heart, my honour, and my courage,
overcame me in an instant. I tried to look at her when she took my hand,
but my eyes were dim. I tried to thank her, but my voice failed me.

“Listen to me,” she said, considerately avoiding all notice of my loss of
self-control. “Listen to me, and let us get it over at once. It is a real
true relief to me that I am not obliged, in what I have now to say, to
enter into the question—the hard and cruel question as I think it—of
social inequalities. Circumstances which will try you to the quick,
spare me the ungracious necessity of paining a man who has lived in
friendly intimacy under the same roof with myself by any humiliating
reference to matters of rank and station. You must leave Limmeridge House,
Mr. Hartright, before more harm is done. It is my duty to say that to you;
and it would be equally my duty to say it, under precisely the same
serious necessity, if you were the representative of the oldest and
wealthiest family in England. You must leave us, not because you are a
teacher of drawing——”

She waited a moment, turned her face full on me, and reaching across the
table, laid her hand firmly on my arm.

“Not because you are a teacher of drawing,” she repeated, “but because
Laura Fairlie is engaged to be married.”

The last word went like a bullet to my heart. My arm lost all sensation of
the hand that grasped it. I never moved and never spoke. The sharp autumn
breeze that scattered the dead leaves at our feet came as cold to me, on a
sudden, as if my own mad hopes were dead leaves too, whirled away by the
wind like the rest. Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally
far from me. Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not
if they had loved her as I did.

The pang passed, and nothing but the dull numbing pain of it remained. I
felt Miss Halcombe’s hand again, tightening its hold on my arm—I
raised my head and looked at her. Her large black eyes were rooted on me,
watching the white change on my face, which I felt, and which she saw.

“Crush it!” she said. “Here, where you first saw her, crush it! Don’t
shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under foot like a
man!”

The suppressed vehemence with which she spoke, the strength which her will—concentrated
in the look she fixed on me, and in the hold on my arm that she had not
yet relinquished—communicated to mine, steadied me. We both waited
for a minute in silence. At the end of that time I had justified her
generous faith in my manhood—I had, outwardly at least, recovered my
self-control.

“Are you yourself again?”

“Enough myself, Miss Halcombe, to ask your pardon and hers. Enough myself
to be guided by your advice, and to prove my gratitude in that way, if I
can prove it in no other.”

“You have proved it already,” she answered, “by those words. Mr.
Hartright, concealment is at an end between us. I cannot affect to hide
from you what my sister has unconsciously shown to me. You
must leave us for her sake, as well as for your own. Your presence here,
your necessary intimacy with us, harmless as it has been, God knows, in
all other respects, has unsteadied her and made her wretched. I, who love
her better than my own life—I, who have learnt to believe in that
pure, noble, innocent nature as I believe in my religion—know but
too well the secret misery of self-reproach that she has been suffering
since the first shadow of a feeling disloyal to her marriage engagement
entered her heart in spite of her. I don’t say—it would be useless
to attempt to say it after what has happened—that her engagement has
ever had a strong hold on her affections. It is an engagement of honour,
not of love; her father sanctioned it on his deathbed, two years since;
she herself neither welcomed it nor shrank from it—she was content
to make it. Till you came here she was in the position of hundreds of
other women, who marry men without being greatly attracted to them or
greatly repelled by them, and who learn to love them (when they don’t
learn to hate!) after marriage, instead of before. I hope more earnestly
than words can say—and you should have the self-sacrificing courage
to hope too—that the new thoughts and feelings which have disturbed
the old calmness and the old content have not taken root too deeply to be
ever removed. Your absence (if I had less belief in your honour, and your
courage, and your sense, I should not trust to them as I am trusting now)
your absence will help my efforts, and time will help us all three. It is
something to know that my first confidence in you was not all misplaced.
It is something to know that you will not be less honest, less manly, less
considerate towards the pupil whose relation to yourself you have had the
misfortune to forget, than towards the stranger and the outcast whose
appeal to you was not made in vain.”

Again the chance reference to the woman in white! Was there no possibility
of speaking of Miss Fairlie and of me without raising the memory of Anne
Catherick, and setting her between us like a fatality that it was hopeless
to avoid?

“Tell me what apology I can make to Mr. Fairlie for breaking my
engagement,” I said. “Tell me when to go after that apology is accepted. I
promise implicit obedience to you and to your advice.”

“Time is every way of importance,” she answered. “You heard me refer this
morning to Monday next, and to the necessity of setting the purple room in
order. The visitor whom we expect on Monday——”

I could not wait for her to be more explicit. Knowing what I knew now, the
memory of Miss Fairlie’s look and manner at the breakfast-table told me
that the expected visitor at Limmeridge House was her future husband. I
tried to force it back; but something rose within me at that moment
stronger than my own will, and I interrupted Miss Halcombe.

“Let me go to-day,” I said bitterly. “The sooner the better.”

“No, not to-day,” she replied. “The only reason you can assign to Mr.
Fairlie for your departure, before the end of your engagement, must be
that an unforeseen necessity compels you to ask his permission to return
at once to London. You must wait till to-morrow to tell him that, at the
time when the post comes in, because he will then understand the sudden
change in your plans, by associating it with the arrival of a letter from
London. It is miserable and sickening to descend to deceit, even of the
most harmless kind—but I know Mr. Fairlie, and if you once excite
his suspicions that you are trifling with him, he will refuse to release
you. Speak to him on Friday morning: occupy yourself afterwards (for the
sake of your own interests with your employer) in leaving your unfinished
work in as little confusion as possible, and quit this place on Saturday.
It will be time enough then, Mr. Hartright, for you, and for all of us.”

Before I could assure her that she might depend on my acting in the
strictest accordance with her wishes, we were both startled by advancing
footsteps in the shrubbery. Some one was coming from the house to seek for
us! I felt the blood rush into my cheeks and then leave them again. Could
the third person who was fast approaching us, at such a time and under
such circumstances, be Miss Fairlie?

It was a relief—so sadly, so hopelessly was my position towards her
changed already—it was absolutely a relief to me, when the person
who had disturbed us appeared at the entrance of the summer-house, and
proved to be only Miss Fairlie’s maid.

“Could I speak to you for a moment, miss?” said the girl, in rather a
flurried, unsettled manner.

Miss Halcombe descended the steps into the shrubbery, and walked aside a
few paces with the maid.

Left by myself, my mind reverted, with a sense of forlorn wretchedness
which it is not in any words that I can find to describe, to my
approaching return to the solitude and the despair of my lonely London
home. Thoughts of my kind old mother, and of my sister, who had rejoiced
with her so innocently over my prospects in Cumberland—thoughts
whose long banishment from my heart it was now my shame and my reproach to
realise for the first time—came back to me with the loving
mournfulness of old, neglected friends. My mother and my sister, what
would they feel when I returned to them from my broken engagement, with
the confession of my miserable secret—they who had parted from me so
hopefully on that last happy night in the Hampstead cottage!

Anne Catherick again! Even the memory of the farewell evening with my
mother and my sister could not return to me now unconnected with that
other memory of the moonlight walk back to London. What did it mean? Were
that woman and I to meet once more? It was possible, at the least. Did she
know that I lived in London? Yes; I had told her so, either before or
after that strange question of hers, when she had asked me so
distrustfully if I knew many men of the rank of Baronet. Either before or
after—my mind was not calm enough, then, to remember which.

A few minutes elapsed before Miss Halcombe dismissed the maid and came
back to me. She, too, looked flurried and unsettled now.

“We have arranged all that is necessary, Mr. Hartright,” she said. “We
have understood each other, as friends should, and we may go back at once
to the house. To tell you the truth, I am uneasy about Laura. She has sent
to say she wants to see me directly, and the maid reports that her
mistress is apparently very much agitated by a letter that she has
received this morning—the same letter, no doubt, which I sent on to
the house before we came here.”

We retraced our steps together hastily along the shrubbery path. Although
Miss Halcombe had ended all that she thought it necessary to say on her
side, I had not ended all that I wanted to say on mine. From the moment
when I had discovered that the expected visitor at Limmeridge was Miss
Fairlie’s future husband, I had felt a bitter curiosity, a burning envious
eagerness, to know who he was. It was possible that a future opportunity
of putting the question might not easily offer, so I risked asking it on
our way back to the house.

“Now that you are kind enough to tell me we have understood each other,
Miss Halcombe,” I said, “now that you are sure of my gratitude for your
forbearance and my obedience to your wishes, may I venture to ask who”—(I
hesitated—I had forced myself to think of him, but it was harder
still to speak of him, as her promised husband)—“who the gentleman
engaged to Miss Fairlie is?”

Her mind was evidently occupied with the message she had received from her
sister. She answered in a hasty, absent way—

“A gentleman of large property in Hampshire.”

Hampshire! Anne Catherick’s native place. Again, and yet again, the woman
in white. There was a fatality in it.

“And his name?” I said, as quietly and indifferently as I could.

“Sir Percival Glyde.”

Sir—Sir Percival! Anne Catherick’s question—that
suspicious question about the men of the rank of Baronet whom I might
happen to know—had hardly been dismissed from my mind by Miss
Halcombe’s return to me in the summer-house, before it was recalled again
by her own answer. I stopped suddenly, and looked at her.

“Sir Percival Glyde,” she repeated, imagining that I had not heard her
former reply.

“Knight, or Baronet?” I asked, with an agitation that I could hide no
longer.

She paused for a moment, and then answered, rather coldly—

“Baronet, of course.”

XI

Not a word more was said, on either side, as we walked back to the house.
Miss Halcombe hastened immediately to her sister’s room, and I withdrew to
my studio to set in order all of Mr. Fairlie’s drawings that I had not yet
mounted and restored before I resigned them to the care of other hands.
Thoughts that I had hitherto restrained, thoughts that made my position
harder than ever to endure, crowded on me now that I was alone.

She was engaged to be married, and her future husband was Sir Percival
Glyde. A man of the rank of Baronet, and the owner of property in
Hampshire.

There were hundreds of baronets in England, and dozens of landowners in
Hampshire. Judging by the ordinary rules of evidence, I had not the shadow
of a reason, thus far, for connecting Sir Percival Glyde with the
suspicious words of inquiry that had been spoken to me by the woman in
white. And yet, I did connect him with them. Was it because he had now
become associated in my mind with Miss Fairlie, Miss Fairlie being, in her
turn, associated with Anne Catherick, since the night when I had
discovered the ominous likeness between them? Had the events of the
morning so unnerved me already that I was at the mercy of any delusion
which common chances and common coincidences might suggest to my
imagination? Impossible to say. I could only feel that what had passed
between Miss Halcombe and myself, on our way from the summer-house, had
affected me very strangely. The foreboding of some undiscoverable danger
lying hid from us all in the darkness of the future was strong on me. The
doubt whether I was not linked already to a chain of events which even my
approaching departure from Cumberland would be powerless to snap asunder—the
doubt whether we any of us saw the end as the end would really be—gathered
more and more darkly over my mind. Poignant as it was, the sense of
suffering caused by the miserable end of my brief, presumptuous love
seemed to be blunted and deadened by the still stronger sense of something
obscurely impending, something invisibly threatening, that Time was
holding over our heads.

I had been engaged with the drawings little more than half an hour, when
there was a knock at the door. It opened, on my answering; and, to my
surprise, Miss Halcombe entered the room.

Her manner was angry and agitated. She caught up a chair for herself
before I could give her one, and sat down in it, close at my side.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “I had hoped that all painful subjects of
conversation were exhausted between us, for to-day at least. But it is not
to be so. There is some underhand villainy at work to frighten my sister
about her approaching marriage. You saw me send the gardener on to the
house, with a letter addressed, in a strange handwriting, to Miss
Fairlie?”

“Certainly.”

“The letter is an anonymous letter—a vile attempt to injure Sir
Percival Glyde in my sister’s estimation. It has so agitated and alarmed
her that I have had the greatest possible difficulty in composing her
spirits sufficiently to allow me to leave her room and come here. I know
this is a family matter on which I ought not to consult you, and in which
you can feel no concern or interest——”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe. I feel the strongest possible concern
and interest in anything that affects Miss Fairlie’s happiness or yours.”

“I am glad to hear you say so. You are the only person in the house, or
out of it, who can advise me. Mr. Fairlie, in his state of health and with
his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not to be
thought of. The clergyman is a good, weak man, who knows nothing out of
the routine of his duties; and our neighbours are just the sort of
comfortable, jog-trot acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times of
trouble and danger. What I want to know is this: ought I at once to take
such steps as I can to discover the writer of the letter? or ought I to
wait, and apply to Mr. Fairlie’s legal adviser to-morrow? It is a question—perhaps
a very important one—of gaining or losing a day. Tell me what you
think, Mr. Hartright. If necessity had not already obliged me to take you
into my confidence under very delicate circumstances, even my helpless
situation would, perhaps, be no excuse for me. But as things are I cannot
surely be wrong, after all that has passed between us, in forgetting that
you are a friend of only three months’ standing.”

She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, without any preliminary form of
address, as follows—

“Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your own sake, that you do. See
what Scripture says about dreams and their fulfilment (Genesis xl. 8, xli.
25; Daniel iv. 18-25), and take the warning I send you before it is too
late.

“Last night I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie. I dreamed that I was
standing inside the communion rails of a church—I on one side of the
altar-table, and the clergyman, with his surplice and his prayer-book, on
the other.

“After a time there walked towards us, down the aisle of the church, a man
and a woman, coming to be married. You were the woman. You looked so
pretty and innocent in your beautiful white silk dress, and your long
white lace veil, that my heart felt for you, and the tears came into my
eyes.

“They were tears of pity, young lady, that heaven blesses and instead of
falling from my eyes like the everyday tears that we all of us shed, they
turned into two rays of light which slanted nearer and nearer to the man
standing at the altar with you, till they touched his breast. The two rays
sprang in arches like two rainbows between me and him. I looked along
them, and I saw down into his inmost heart.

“The outside of the man you were marrying was fair enough to see. He was
neither tall nor short—he was a little below the middle size. A
light, active, high-spirited man—about five-and-forty years old, to
look at. He had a pale face, and was bald over the forehead, but had dark
hair on the rest of his head. His beard was shaven on his chin, but was
let to grow, of a fine rich brown, on his cheeks and his upper lip. His
eyes were brown too, and very bright; his nose straight and handsome and
delicate enough to have done for a woman’s. His hands the same. He was
troubled from time to time with a dry hacking cough, and when he put up
his white right hand to his mouth, he showed the red scar of an old wound
across the back of it. Have I dreamt of the right man? You know best, Miss
Fairlie; and you can say if I was deceived or not. Read next, what I saw
beneath the outside—I entreat you, read, and profit.

“I looked along the two rays of light, and I saw down into his inmost
heart. It was black as night, and on it were written, in the red flaming
letters which are the handwriting of the fallen angel, ‘Without pity and
without remorse. He has strewn with misery the paths of others, and he
will live to strew with misery the path of this woman by his side.’ I read
that, and then the rays of light shifted and pointed over his shoulder;
and there, behind him, stood a fiend laughing. And the rays of light
shifted once more, and pointed over your shoulder; and there behind you,
stood an angel weeping. And the rays of light shifted for the third time,
and pointed straight between you and that man. They widened and widened,
thrusting you both asunder, one from the other. And the clergyman looked
for the marriage-service in vain: it was gone out of the book, and he shut
up the leaves, and put it from him in despair. And I woke with my eyes
full of tears and my heart beating—for I believe in dreams.

“Believe too, Miss Fairlie—I beg of you, for your own sake, believe
as I do. Joseph and Daniel, and others in Scripture, believed in dreams.
Inquire into the past life of that man with the scar on his hand, before
you say the words that make you his miserable wife. I don’t give you this
warning on my account, but on yours. I have an interest in your well-being
that will live as long as I draw breath. Your mother’s daughter has a
tender place in my heart—for your mother was my first, my best, my
only friend.”

There the extraordinary letter ended, without signature of any sort.

The handwriting afforded no prospect of a clue. It was traced on ruled
lines, in the cramped, conventional, copy-book character technically
termed “small hand.” It was feeble and faint, and defaced by blots, but
had otherwise nothing to distinguish it.

“That is not an illiterate letter,” said Miss Halcombe, “and at the same
time, it is surely too incoherent to be the letter of an educated person
in the higher ranks of life. The reference to the bridal dress and veil,
and other little expressions, seem to point to it as the production of
some woman. What do you think, Mr. Hartright?”

“I think so too. It seems to me to be not only the letter of a woman, but
of a woman whose mind must be——”

“Deranged?” suggested Miss Halcombe. “It struck me in that light too.”

I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes rested on the last
sentence of the letter: “Your mother’s daughter has a tender place in my
heart—for your mother was my first, my best, my only friend.” Those
words and the doubt which had just escaped me as to the sanity of the
writer of the letter, acting together on my mind, suggested an idea, which
I was literally afraid to express openly, or even to encourage secretly. I
began to doubt whether my own faculties were not in danger of losing their
balance. It seemed almost like a monomania to be tracing back everything
strange that happened, everything unexpected that was said, always to the
same hidden source and the same sinister influence. I resolved, this time,
in defence of my own courage and my own sense, to come to no decision that
plain fact did not warrant, and to turn my back resolutely on everything
that tempted me in the shape of surmise.

“If we have any chance of tracing the person who has written this,” I
said, returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, “there can be no harm in
seizing our opportunity the moment it offers. I think we ought to speak to
the gardener again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and
then to continue our inquiries in the village. But first let me ask a
question. You mentioned just now the alternative of consulting Mr.
Fairlie’s legal adviser to-morrow. Is there no possibility of
communicating with him earlier? Why not to-day?”

“I can only explain,” replied Miss Halcombe, “by entering into certain
particulars, connected with my sister’s marriage-engagement, which I did
not think it necessary or desirable to mention to you this morning. One of
Sir Percival Glyde’s objects in coming here on Monday, is to fix the
period of his marriage, which has hitherto been left quite unsettled. He
is anxious that the event should take place before the end of the year.”

“Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?” I asked eagerly.

“She has no suspicion of it, and after what has happened, I shall not take
the responsibility upon myself of enlightening her. Sir Percival has only
mentioned his views to Mr. Fairlie, who has told me himself that he is
ready and anxious, as Laura’s guardian, to forward them. He has written to
London, to the family solicitor, Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore happens to be
away in Glasgow on business, and he has replied by proposing to stop at
Limmeridge House on his way back to town. He will arrive to-morrow, and
will stay with us a few days, so as to allow Sir Percival time to plead
his own cause. If he succeeds, Mr. Gilmore will then return to London,
taking with him his instructions for my sister’s marriage-settlement. You
understand now, Mr. Hartright, why I speak of waiting to take legal advice
until to-morrow? Mr. Gilmore is the old and tried friend of two
generations of Fairlies, and we can trust him, as we could trust no one
else.”

The marriage-settlement! The mere hearing of those two words stung me with
a jealous despair that was poison to my higher and better instincts. I
began to think—it is hard to confess this, but I must suppress
nothing from beginning to end of the terrible story that I now stand
committed to reveal—I began to think, with a hateful eagerness of
hope, of the vague charges against Sir Percival Glyde which the anonymous
letter contained. What if those wild accusations rested on a foundation of
truth? What if their truth could be proved before the fatal words of
consent were spoken, and the marriage-settlement was drawn? I have tried
to think since, that the feeling which then animated me began and ended in
pure devotion to Miss Fairlie’s interests, but I have never succeeded in
deceiving myself into believing it, and I must not now attempt to deceive
others. The feeling began and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless
hatred of the man who was to marry her.

“If we are to find out anything,” I said, speaking under the new influence
which was now directing me, “we had better not let another minute slip by
us unemployed. I can only suggest, once more, the propriety of questioning
the gardener a second time, and of inquiring in the village immediately
afterwards.”

“I think I may be of help to you in both cases,” said Miss Halcombe,
rising. “Let us go, Mr. Hartright, at once, and do the best we can
together.”

I had the door in my hand to open it for her—but I stopped, on a
sudden, to ask an important question before we set forth.

“One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter,” I said, “contains some
sentences of minute personal description. Sir Percival Glyde’s name is not
mentioned, I know—but does that description at all resemble him?”

“Accurately—even in stating his age to be forty-five——”

Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! Men of his age married wives
of her age every day—and experience had shown those marriages to be
often the happiest ones. I knew that—and yet even the mention of his
age, when I contrasted it with hers, added to my blind hatred and distrust
of him.

“Accurately,” Miss Halcombe continued, “even to the scar on his right
hand, which is the scar of a wound that he received years since when he
was travelling in Italy. There can be no doubt that every peculiarity of
his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the
letter.”

“Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember right?”

“Yes, and mentioned correctly. He treats it lightly himself, though it
sometimes makes his friends anxious about him.”

“I suppose no whispers have ever been heard against his character?”

“Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough to let that infamous
letter influence you?”

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that it had
influenced me.

“I hope not,” I answered confusedly. “Perhaps I had no right to ask the
question.”

“I am not sorry you asked it,” she said, “for it enables me to do justice
to Sir Percival’s reputation. Not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever
reached me, or my family, against him. He has fought successfully two
contested elections, and has come out of the ordeal unscathed. A man who
can do that, in England, is a man whose character is established.”

I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had not
convinced me. If the recording angel had come down from heaven to confirm
her, and had opened his book to my mortal eyes, the recording angel would
not have convinced me.

We found the gardener at work as usual. No amount of questioning could
extract a single answer of any importance from the lad’s impenetrable
stupidity. The woman who had given him the letter was an elderly woman;
she had not spoken a word to him, and she had gone away towards the south
in a great hurry. That was all the gardener could tell us.

The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went next.

XII

Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and
among all sorts and conditions of people. But nothing came of them. Three
of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but
as they were quite unable to describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing
about the exact direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw
her, these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total ignorance
afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of their unhelpful
and unobservant neighbours.

The course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to the end
of the village at which the schools established by Mrs. Fairlie were
situated. As we passed the side of the building appropriated to the use of
the boys, I suggested the propriety of making a last inquiry of the
schoolmaster, whom we might presume to be, in virtue of his office, the
most intelligent man in the place.

“I am afraid the schoolmaster must have been occupied with his scholars,”
said Miss Halcombe, “just at the time when the woman passed through the
village and returned again. However, we can but try.”

We entered the playground enclosure, and walked by the schoolroom window
to get round to the door, which was situated at the back of the building.
I stopped for a moment at the window and looked in.

The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me,
apparently haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered together in front
of him, with one exception. The one exception was a sturdy white-headed
boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool in a corner—a
forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his own desert island of solitary penal
disgrace.

The door, when we got round to it, was ajar, and the school-master’s voice
reached us plainly, as we both stopped for a minute under the porch.

“Now, boys,” said the voice, “mind what I tell you. If I hear another word
spoken about ghosts in this school, it will be the worse for all of you.
There are no such things as ghosts, and therefore any boy who believes in
ghosts believes in what can’t possibly be; and a boy who belongs to
Limmeridge School, and believes in what can’t possibly be, sets up his
back against reason and discipline, and must be punished accordingly. You
all see Jacob Postlethwaite standing up on the stool there in disgrace. He
has been punished, not because he said he saw a ghost last night, but
because he is too impudent and too obstinate to listen to reason, and
because he persists in saying he saw the ghost after I have told him that
no such thing can possibly be. If nothing else will do, I mean to cane the
ghost out of Jacob Postlethwaite, and if the thing spreads among any of
the rest of you, I mean to go a step farther, and cane the ghost out of
the whole school.”

“We seem to have chosen an awkward moment for our visit,” said Miss
Halcombe, pushing open the door at the end of the schoolmaster’s address,
and leading the way in.

Our appearance produced a strong sensation among the boys. They appeared
to think that we had arrived for the express purpose of seeing Jacob
Postlethwaite caned.

“Go home all of you to dinner,” said the schoolmaster, “except Jacob.
Jacob must stop where he is; and the ghost may bring him his dinner, if
the ghost pleases.”

Jacob’s fortitude deserted him at the double disappearance of his
schoolfellows and his prospect of dinner. He took his hands out of his
pockets, looked hard at his knuckles, raised them with great deliberation
to his eyes, and when they got there, ground them round and round slowly,
accompanying the action by short spasms of sniffing, which followed each
other at regular intervals—the nasal minute guns of juvenile
distress.

“We came here to ask you a question, Mr. Dempster,” said Miss Halcombe,
addressing the schoolmaster; “and we little expected to find you occupied
in exorcising a ghost. What does it all mean? What has really happened?”

“That wicked boy has been frightening the whole school, Miss Halcombe, by
declaring that he saw a ghost yesterday evening,” answered the master;
“and he still persists in his absurd story, in spite of all that I can say
to him.”

“Most extraordinary,” said Miss Halcombe, “I should not have thought it
possible that any of the boys had imagination enough to see a ghost. This
is a new accession indeed to the hard labour of forming the youthful mind
at Limmeridge, and I heartily wish you well through it, Mr. Dempster. In
the meantime, let me explain why you see me here, and what it is I want.”

She then put the same question to the schoolmaster which we had asked
already of almost every one else in the village. It was met by the same
discouraging answer. Mr. Dempster had not set eyes on the stranger of whom
we were in search.

“We may as well return to the house, Mr. Hartright,” said Miss Halcombe;
“the information we want is evidently not to be found.”

She had bowed to Mr. Dempster, and was about to leave the schoolroom, when
the forlorn position of Jacob Postlethwaite, piteously sniffing on the
stool of penitence, attracted her attention as she passed him, and made
her stop good-humouredly to speak a word to the little prisoner before she
opened the door.

“You foolish boy,” she said, “why don’t you beg Mr. Dempster’s pardon, and
hold your tongue about the ghost?”

“Eh!—but I saw t’ ghaist,” persisted Jacob Postlethwaite, with a
stare of terror and a burst of tears.

“Stuff and nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind. Ghost indeed! What ghost——”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe,” interposed the schoolmaster a little
uneasily—“but I think you had better not question the boy. The
obstinate folly of his story is beyond all belief; and you might lead him
into ignorantly——”

“Ignorantly what?” inquired Miss Halcombe sharply.

“Ignorantly shocking your feelings,” said Mr. Dempster, looking very much
discomposed.

“Upon my word, Mr. Dempster, you pay my feelings a great compliment in
thinking them weak enough to be shocked by such an urchin as that!” She
turned with an air of satirical defiance to little Jacob, and began to
question him directly. “Come!” she said, “I mean to know all about this.
You naughty boy, when did you see the ghost?”

“Yestere’en, at the gloaming,” replied Jacob.

“Oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight? And what was it like?”

“Arl in white—as a ghaist should be,” answered the ghost-seer, with
a confidence beyond his years.

“And where was it?”

“Away yander, in t’ kirkyard—where a ghaist ought to be.”

“As a ‘ghaist’ should be—where a ‘ghaist’ ought to be—why, you
little fool, you talk as if the manners and customs of ghosts had been
familiar to you from your infancy! You have got your story at your
fingers’ ends, at any rate. I suppose I shall hear next that you can
actually tell me whose ghost it was?”

“Eh! but I just can,” replied Jacob, nodding his head with an air of
gloomy triumph.

Mr. Dempster had already tried several times to speak while Miss Halcombe
was examining his pupil, and he now interposed resolutely enough to make
himself heard.

“Excuse me, Miss Halcombe,” he said, “if I venture to say that you are
only encouraging the boy by asking him these questions.”

“I will merely ask one more, Mr. Dempster, and then I shall be quite
satisfied. Well,” she continued, turning to the boy, “and whose ghost was
it?”

“T’ ghaist of Mistress Fairlie,” answered Jacob in a whisper.

The effect which this extraordinary reply produced on Miss Halcombe fully
justified the anxiety which the schoolmaster had shown to prevent her from
hearing it. Her face crimsoned with indignation—she turned upon
little Jacob with an angry suddenness which terrified him into a fresh
burst of tears—opened her lips to speak to him—then controlled
herself, and addressed the master instead of the boy.

“It is useless,” she said, “to hold such a child as that responsible for
what he says. I have little doubt that the idea has been put into his head
by others. If there are people in this village, Mr. Dempster, who have
forgotten the respect and gratitude due from every soul in it to my
mother’s memory, I will find them out, and if I have any influence with
Mr. Fairlie, they shall suffer for it.”

“I hope—indeed, I am sure, Miss Halcombe—that you are
mistaken,” said the schoolmaster. “The matter begins and ends with the
boy’s own perversity and folly. He saw, or thought he saw, a woman in
white, yesterday evening, as he was passing the churchyard; and the
figure, real or fancied, was standing by the marble cross, which he and
every one else in Limmeridge knows to be the monument over Mrs. Fairlie’s
grave. These two circumstances are surely sufficient to have suggested to
the boy himself the answer which has so naturally shocked you?”

Although Miss Halcombe did not seem to be convinced, she evidently felt
that the schoolmaster’s statement of the case was too sensible to be
openly combated. She merely replied by thanking him for his attention, and
by promising to see him again when her doubts were satisfied. This said,
she bowed, and led the way out of the schoolroom.

Throughout the whole of this strange scene I had stood apart, listening
attentively, and drawing my own conclusions. As soon as we were alone
again, Miss Halcombe asked me if I had formed any opinion on what I had
heard.

“A very strong opinion,” I answered; “the boy’s story, as I believe, has a
foundation in fact. I confess I am anxious to see the monument over Mrs.
Fairlie’s grave, and to examine the ground about it.”

“You shall see the grave.”

She paused after making that reply, and reflected a little as we walked
on. “What has happened in the schoolroom,” she resumed, “has so completely
distracted my attention from the subject of the letter, that I feel a
little bewildered when I try to return to it. Must we give up all idea of
making any further inquiries, and wait to place the thing in Mr. Gilmore’s
hands to-morrow?”

“By no means, Miss Halcombe. What has happened in the schoolroom
encourages me to persevere in the investigation.”

“Why does it encourage you?”

“Because it strengthens a suspicion I felt when you gave me the letter to
read.”

“I suppose you had your reasons, Mr. Hartright, for concealing that
suspicion from me till this moment?”

“I was afraid to encourage it in myself. I thought it was utterly
preposterous—I distrusted it as the result of some perversity in my
own imagination. But I can do so no longer. Not only the boy’s own answers
to your questions, but even a chance expression that dropped from the
schoolmaster’s lips in explaining his story, have forced the idea back
into my mind. Events may yet prove that idea to be a delusion, Miss
Halcombe; but the belief is strong in me, at this moment, that the fancied
ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the anonymous letter, are one
and the same person.”

She stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in the face.

“What person?”

“The schoolmaster unconsciously told you. When he spoke of the figure that
the boy saw in the churchyard he called it ‘a woman in white.’”

“Not Anne Catherick?”

“Yes, Anne Catherick.”

She put her hand through my arm and leaned on it heavily.

“I don’t know why,” she said in low tones, “but there is something in this
suspicion of yours that seems to startle and unnerve me. I feel——”
She stopped, and tried to laugh it off. “Mr. Hartright,” she went on, “I
will show you the grave, and then go back at once to the house. I had
better not leave Laura too long alone. I had better go back and sit with
her.”

We were close to the churchyard when she spoke. The church, a dreary
building of grey stone, was situated in a little valley, so as to be
sheltered from the bleak winds blowing over the moorland all round it. The
burial-ground advanced, from the side of the church, a little way up the
slope of the hill. It was surrounded by a rough, low stone wall, and was
bare and open to the sky, except at one extremity, where a brook trickled
down the stony hill-side, and a clump of dwarf trees threw their narrow
shadows over the short, meagre grass. Just beyond the brook and the trees,
and not far from one of the three stone stiles which afforded entrance, at
various points, to the churchyard, rose the white marble cross that
distinguished Mrs. Fairlie’s grave from the humbler monuments scattered
about it.

“I need go no farther with you,” said Miss Halcombe, pointing to the
grave. “You will let me know if you find anything to confirm the idea you
have just mentioned to me. Let us meet again at the house.”

She left me. I descended at once to the churchyard, and crossed the stile
which led directly to Mrs. Fairlie’s grave.

The grass about it was too short, and the ground too hard, to show any
marks of footsteps. Disappointed thus far, I next looked attentively at
the cross, and at the square block of marble below it, on which the
inscription was cut.

The natural whiteness of the cross was a little clouded, here and there,
by weather stains, and rather more than one half of the square block
beneath it, on the side which bore the inscription, was in the same
condition. The other half, however, attracted my attention at once by its
singular freedom from stain or impurity of any kind. I looked closer, and
saw that it had been cleaned—recently cleaned, in a downward
direction from top to bottom. The boundary line between the part that had
been cleaned and the part that had not was traceable wherever the
inscription left a blank space of marble—sharply traceable as a line
that had been produced by artificial means. Who had begun the cleansing of
the marble, and who had left it unfinished?

I looked about me, wondering how the question was to be solved. No sign of
a habitation could be discerned from the point at which I was standing—the
burial-ground was left in the lonely possession of the dead. I returned to
the church, and walked round it till I came to the back of the building;
then crossed the boundary wall beyond, by another of the stone stiles, and
found myself at the head of a path leading down into a deserted stone
quarry. Against one side of the quarry a little two-room cottage was
built, and just outside the door an old woman was engaged in washing.

I walked up to her, and entered into conversation about the church and
burial-ground. She was ready enough to talk, and almost the first words
she said informed me that her husband filled the two offices of clerk and
sexton. I said a few words next in praise of Mrs. Fairlie’s monument. The
old woman shook her head, and told me I had not seen it at its best. It
was her husband’s business to look after it, but he had been so ailing and
weak for months and months past, that he had hardly been able to crawl
into church on Sundays to do his duty, and the monument had been neglected
in consequence. He was getting a little better now, and in a week or ten
days’ time he hoped to be strong enough to set to work and clean it.

This information—extracted from a long rambling answer in the
broadest Cumberland dialect—told me all that I most wanted to know.
I gave the poor woman a trifle, and returned at once to Limmeridge House.

The partial cleansing of the monument had evidently been accomplished by a
strange hand. Connecting what I had discovered, thus far, with what I had
suspected after hearing the story of the ghost seen at twilight, I wanted
nothing more to confirm my resolution to watch Mrs. Fairlie’s grave, in
secret, that evening, returning to it at sunset, and waiting within sight
of it till the night fell. The work of cleansing the monument had been
left unfinished, and the person by whom it had been begun might return to
complete it.

On getting back to the house I informed Miss Halcombe of what I intended
to do. She looked surprised and uneasy while I was explaining my purpose,
but she made no positive objection to the execution of it. She only said,
“I hope it may end well.”

Just as she was leaving me again, I stopped her to inquire, as calmly as I
could, after Miss Fairlie’s health. She was in better spirits, and Miss
Halcombe hoped she might be induced to take a little walking exercise
while the afternoon sun lasted.

I returned to my own room to resume setting the drawings in order. It was
necessary to do this, and doubly necessary to keep my mind employed on
anything that would help to distract my attention from myself, and from
the hopeless future that lay before me. From time to time I paused in my
work to look out of window and watch the sky as the sun sank nearer and
nearer to the horizon. On one of those occasions I saw a figure on the
broad gravel walk under my window. It was Miss Fairlie.

I had not seen her since the morning, and I had hardly spoken to her then.
Another day at Limmeridge was all that remained to me, and after that day
my eyes might never look on her again. This thought was enough to hold me
at the window. I had sufficient consideration for her to arrange the blind
so that she might not see me if she looked up, but I had no strength to
resist the temptation of letting my eyes, at least, follow her as far as
they could on her walk.

She was dressed in a brown cloak, with a plain black silk gown under it.
On her head was the same simple straw hat which she had worn on the
morning when we first met. A veil was attached to it now which hid her
face from me. By her side trotted a little Italian greyhound, the pet
companion of all her walks, smartly dressed in a scarlet cloth wrapper, to
keep the sharp air from his delicate skin. She did not seem to notice the
dog. She walked straight forward, with her head drooping a little, and her
arms folded in her cloak. The dead leaves, which had whirled in the wind
before me when I had heard of her marriage engagement in the morning,
whirled in the wind before her, and rose and fell and scattered themselves
at her feet as she walked on in the pale waning sunlight. The dog shivered
and trembled, and pressed against her dress impatiently for notice and
encouragement. But she never heeded him. She walked on, farther and
farther away from me, with the dead leaves whirling about her on the path—walked
on, till my aching eyes could see her no more, and I was left alone again
with my own heavy heart.

In another hour’s time I had done my work, and the sunset was at hand. I
got my hat and coat in the hall, and slipped out of the house without
meeting any one.

The clouds were wild in the western heaven, and the wind blew chill from
the sea. Far as the shore was, the sound of the surf swept over the
intervening moorland, and beat drearily in my ears when I entered the
churchyard. Not a living creature was in sight. The place looked lonelier
than ever as I chose my position, and waited and watched, with my eyes on
the white cross that rose over Mrs. Fairlie’s grave.

XIII

The exposed situation of the churchyard had obliged me to be cautious in
choosing the position that I was to occupy.

The main entrance to the church was on the side next to the burial-ground,
and the door was screened by a porch walled in on either side. After some
little hesitation, caused by natural reluctance to conceal myself,
indispensable as that concealment was to the object in view, I had
resolved on entering the porch. A loophole window was pierced in each of
its side walls. Through one of these windows I could see Mrs. Fairlie’s
grave. The other looked towards the stone quarry in which the sexton’s
cottage was built. Before me, fronting the porch entrance, was a patch of
bare burial-ground, a line of low stone wall, and a strip of lonely brown
hill, with the sunset clouds sailing heavily over it before the strong,
steady wind. No living creature was visible or audible—no bird flew
by me, no dog barked from the sexton’s cottage. The pauses in the dull
beating of the surf were filled up by the dreary rustling of the dwarf
trees near the grave, and the cold faint bubble of the brook over its
stony bed. A dreary scene and a dreary hour. My spirits sank fast as I
counted out the minutes of the evening in my hiding-place under the church
porch.

It was not twilight yet—the light of the setting sun still lingered
in the heavens, and little more than the first half-hour of my solitary
watch had elapsed—when I heard footsteps and a voice. The footsteps
were approaching from the other side of the church, and the voice was a
woman’s.

“Don’t you fret, my dear, about the letter,” said the voice. “I gave it to
the lad quite safe, and the lad he took it from me without a word. He went
his way and I went mine, and not a living soul followed me afterwards—that
I’ll warrant.”

These words strung up my attention to a pitch of expectation that was
almost painful. There was a pause of silence, but the footsteps still
advanced. In another moment two persons, both women, passed within my
range of view from the porch window. They were walking straight towards
the grave; and therefore they had their backs turned towards me.

One of the women was dressed in a bonnet and shawl. The other wore a long
travelling-cloak of a dark-blue colour, with the hood drawn over her head.
A few inches of her gown were visible below the cloak. My heart beat fast
as I noted the colour—it was white.

After advancing about half-way between the church and the grave they
stopped, and the woman in the cloak turned her head towards her companion.
But her side face, which a bonnet might now have allowed me to see, was
hidden by the heavy, projecting edge of the hood.

“Mind you keep that comfortable warm cloak on,” said the same voice which
I had already heard—the voice of the woman in the shawl. “Mrs. Todd
is right about your looking too particular, yesterday, all in white. I’ll
walk about a little while you’re here, churchyards being not at all in my
way, whatever they may be in yours. Finish what you want to do before I
come back, and let us be sure and get home again before night.”

With those words she turned about, and retracing her steps, advanced with
her face towards me. It was the face of an elderly woman, brown, rugged,
and healthy, with nothing dishonest or suspicious in the look of it. Close
to the church she stopped to pull her shawl closer round her.

“Queer,” she said to herself, “always queer, with her whims and her ways,
ever since I can remember her. Harmless, though—as harmless, poor
soul, as a little child.”

She sighed—looked about the burial-ground nervously—shook her
head, as if the dreary prospect by no means pleased her, and disappeared
round the corner of the church.

I doubted for a moment whether I ought to follow and speak to her or not.
My intense anxiety to find myself face to face with her companion helped
me to decide in the negative. I could ensure seeing the woman in the shawl
by waiting near the churchyard until she came back—although it
seemed more than doubtful whether she could give me the information of
which I was in search. The person who had delivered the letter was of
little consequence. The person who had written it was the one centre of
interest, and the one source of information, and that person I now felt
convinced was before me in the churchyard.

While these ideas were passing through my mind I saw the woman in the
cloak approach close to the grave, and stand looking at it for a little
while. She then glanced all round her, and taking a white linen cloth or
handkerchief from under her cloak, turned aside towards the brook. The
little stream ran into the churchyard under a tiny archway in the bottom
of the wall, and ran out again, after a winding course of a few dozen
yards, under a similar opening. She dipped the cloth in the water, and
returned to the grave. I saw her kiss the white cross, then kneel down
before the inscription, and apply her wet cloth to the cleansing of it.

After considering how I could show myself with the least possible chance
of frightening her, I resolved to cross the wall before me, to skirt round
it outside, and to enter the churchyard again by the stile near the grave,
in order that she might see me as I approached. She was so absorbed over
her employment that she did not hear me coming until I had stepped over
the stile. Then she looked up, started to her feet with a faint cry, and
stood facing me in speechless and motionless terror.

“Don’t be frightened,” I said. “Surely you remember me?”

I stopped while I spoke—then advanced a few steps gently—then
stopped again—and so approached by little and little till I was
close to her. If there had been any doubt still left in my mind, it must
have been now set at rest. There, speaking affrightedly for itself—there
was the same face confronting me over Mrs. Fairlie’s grave which had first
looked into mine on the high-road by night.

“You remember me?” I said. “We met very late, and I helped you to find the
way to London. Surely you have not forgotten that?”

Her features relaxed, and she drew a heavy breath of relief. I saw the new
life of recognition stirring slowly under the death-like stillness which
fear had set on her face.

“Don’t attempt to speak to me just yet,” I went on. “Take time to recover
yourself—take time to feel quite certain that I am a friend.”

“You are very kind to me,” she murmured. “As kind now as you were then.”

She stopped, and I kept silence on my side. I was not granting time for
composure to her only, I was gaining time also for myself. Under the wan
wild evening light, that woman and I were met together again, a grave
between us, the dead about us, the lonesome hills closing us round on
every side. The time, the place, the circumstances under which we now
stood face to face in the evening stillness of that dreary valley—the
lifelong interests which might hang suspended on the next chance words
that passed between us—the sense that, for aught I knew to the
contrary, the whole future of Laura Fairlie’s life might be determined,
for good or for evil, by my winning or losing the confidence of the
forlorn creature who stood trembling by her mother’s grave—all
threatened to shake the steadiness and the self-control on which every
inch of the progress I might yet make now depended. I tried hard, as I
felt this, to possess myself of all my resources; I did my utmost to turn
the few moments for reflection to the best account.

“Are you calmer now?” I said, as soon as I thought it time to speak again.
“Can you talk to me without feeling frightened, and without forgetting
that I am a friend?”

“How did you come here?” she asked, without noticing what I had just said
to her.

“Don’t you remember my telling you, when we last met, that I was going to
Cumberland? I have been in Cumberland ever since—I have been staying
all the time at Limmeridge House.”

“At Limmeridge House!” Her pale face brightened as she repeated the words,
her wandering eyes fixed on me with a sudden interest. “Ah, how happy you
must have been!” she said, looking at me eagerly, without a shadow of its
former distrust left in her expression.

I took advantage of her newly-aroused confidence in me to observe her
face, with an attention and a curiosity which I had hitherto restrained
myself from showing, for caution’s sake. I looked at her, with my mind
full of that other lovely face which had so ominously recalled her to my
memory on the terrace by moonlight. I had seen Anne Catherick’s likeness
in Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlie’s likeness in Anne Catherick—saw
it all the more clearly because the points of dissimilarity between the
two were presented to me as well as the points of resemblance. In the
general outline of the countenance and general proportion of the features—in
the colour of the hair and in the little nervous uncertainty about the
lips—in the height and size of the figure, and the carriage of the
head and body, the likeness appeared even more startling than I had ever
felt it to be yet. But there the resemblance ended, and the dissimilarity,
in details, began. The delicate beauty of Miss Fairlie’s complexion, the
transparent clearness of her eyes, the smooth purity of her skin, the
tender bloom of colour on her lips, were all missing from the worn weary
face that was now turned towards mine. Although I hated myself even for
thinking such a thing, still, while I looked at the woman before me, the
idea would force itself into my mind that one sad change, in the future,
was all that was wanting to make the likeness complete, which I now saw to
be so imperfect in detail. If ever sorrow and suffering set their
profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlie’s face, then, and
then only, Anne Catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance
resemblance, the living reflections of one another.

I shuddered at the thought. There was something horrible in the blind
unreasoning distrust of the future which the mere passage of it through my
mind seemed to imply. It was a welcome interruption to be roused by
feeling Anne Catherick’s hand laid on my shoulder. The touch was as
stealthy and as sudden as that other touch which had petrified me from
head to foot on the night when we first met.

“You are looking at me, and you are thinking of something,” she said, with
her strange breathless rapidity of utterance. “What is it?”

“Nothing extraordinary,” I answered. “I was only wondering how you came
here.”

“I came with a friend who is very good to me. I have only been here two
days.”

“And you found your way to this place yesterday?”

“How do you know that?”

“I only guessed it.”

She turned from me, and knelt down before the inscription once more.

“Where should I go if not here?” she said. “The friend who was better than
a mother to me is the only friend I have to visit at Limmeridge. Oh, it
makes my heart ache to see a stain on her tomb! It ought to be kept white
as snow, for her sake. I was tempted to begin cleaning it yesterday, and I
can’t help coming back to go on with it to-day. Is there anything wrong in
that? I hope not. Surely nothing can be wrong that I do for Mrs. Fairlie’s
sake?”

The old grateful sense of her benefactress’s kindness was evidently the
ruling idea still in the poor creature’s mind—the narrow mind which
had but too plainly opened to no other lasting impression since that first
impression of her younger and happier days. I saw that my best chance of
winning her confidence lay in encouraging her to proceed with the artless
employment which she had come into the burial-ground to pursue. She
resumed it at once, on my telling her she might do so, touching the hard
marble as tenderly as if it had been a sentient thing, and whispering the
words of the inscription to herself, over and over again, as if the lost
days of her girlhood had returned and she was patiently learning her
lesson once more at Mrs. Fairlie’s knees.

“Should you wonder very much,” I said, preparing the way as cautiously as
I could for the questions that were to come, “if I owned that it is a
satisfaction to me, as well as a surprise, to see you here? I felt very
uneasy about you after you left me in the cab.”

She looked up quickly and suspiciously.

“Uneasy,” she repeated. “Why?”

“A strange thing happened after we parted that night. Two men overtook me
in a chaise. They did not see where I was standing, but they stopped near
me, and spoke to a policeman on the other side of the way.”

She instantly suspended her employment. The hand holding the damp cloth
with which she had been cleaning the inscription dropped to her side. The
other hand grasped the marble cross at the head of the grave. Her face
turned towards me slowly, with the blank look of terror set rigidly on it
once more. I went on at all hazards—it was too late now to draw
back.

“The two men spoke to the policeman,” I said, “and asked him if he had
seen you. He had not seen you; and then one of the men spoke again, and
said you had escaped from his Asylum.”

She sprang to her feet as if my last words had set the pursuers on her
track.

“Stop! and hear the end,” I cried. “Stop! and you shall know how I
befriended you. A word from me would have told the men which way you had
gone—and I never spoke that word. I helped your escape—I made
it safe and certain. Think, try to think. Try to understand what I tell
you.”

My manner seemed to influence her more than my words. She made an effort
to grasp the new idea. Her hands shifted the damp cloth hesitatingly from
one to the other, exactly as they had shifted the little travelling-bag on
the night when I first saw her. Slowly the purpose of my words seemed to
force its way through the confusion and agitation of her mind. Slowly her
features relaxed, and her eyes looked at me with their expression gaining
in curiosity what it was fast losing in fear.

“You don’t think I ought to be back in the Asylum, do you?” she
said.

“Certainly not. I am glad you escaped from it—I am glad I helped
you.”

“Yes, yes, you did help me indeed; you helped me at the hard part,” she
went on a little vacantly. “It was easy to escape, or I should not have
got away. They never suspected me as they suspected the others. I was so
quiet, and so obedient, and so easily frightened. The finding London was
the hard part, and there you helped me. Did I thank you at the time? I
thank you now very kindly.”

“Was the Asylum far from where you met me? Come! show that you believe me
to be your friend, and tell me where it was.”

She mentioned the place—a private Asylum, as its situation informed
me; a private Asylum not very far from the spot where I had seen her—and
then, with evident suspicion of the use to which I might put her answer,
anxiously repeated her former inquiry, “You don’t think I ought to
be taken back, do you?”

“Once again, I am glad you escaped—I am glad you prospered well
after you left me,” I answered. “You said you had a friend in London to go
to. Did you find the friend?”

“Yes. It was very late, but there was a girl up at needle-work in the
house, and she helped me to rouse Mrs. Clements. Mrs. Clements is my
friend. A good, kind woman, but not like Mrs. Fairlie. Ah no, nobody is
like Mrs. Fairlie!”

“Is Mrs. Clements an old friend of yours? Have you known her a long time?”

“Yes, she was a neighbour of ours once, at home, in Hampshire, and liked
me, and took care of me when I was a little girl. Years ago, when she went
away from us, she wrote down in my Prayer-book for me where she was going
to live in London, and she said, ‘If you are ever in trouble, Anne, come
to me. I have no husband alive to say me nay, and no children to look
after, and I will take care of you.’ Kind words, were they not? I suppose
I remember them because they were kind. It’s little enough I remember
besides—little enough, little enough!”

“Had you no father or mother to take care of you?”

“Father?—I never saw him—I never heard mother speak of him.
Father? Ah, dear! he is dead, I suppose.”

“And your mother?”

“I don’t get on well with her. We are a trouble and a fear to each other.”

A trouble and a fear to each other! At those words the suspicion crossed
my mind, for the first time, that her mother might be the person who had
placed her under restraint.

“Don’t ask me about mother,” she went on. “I’d rather talk of Mrs.
Clements. Mrs. Clements is like you, she doesn’t think that I ought to be
back in the Asylum, and she is as glad as you are that I escaped from it.
She cried over my misfortune, and said it must be kept secret from
everybody.”

Her “misfortune.” In what sense was she using that word? In a sense which
might explain her motive in writing the anonymous letter? In a sense which
might show it to be the too common and too customary motive that has led
many a woman to interpose anonymous hindrances to the marriage of the man
who has ruined her? I resolved to attempt the clearing up of this doubt
before more words passed between us on either side.

“What misfortune?” I asked.

“The misfortune of my being shut up,” she answered, with every appearance
of feeling surprised at my question. “What other misfortune could there
be?”

I determined to persist, as delicately and forbearingly as possible. It
was of very great importance that I should be absolutely sure of every
step in the investigation which I now gained in advance.

“There is another misfortune,” I said, “to which a woman may be liable,
and by which she may suffer lifelong sorrow and shame.”

“What is it?” she asked eagerly.

“The misfortune of believing too innocently in her own virtue, and in the
faith and honour of the man she loves,” I answered.

She looked up at me with the artless bewilderment of a child. Not the
slightest confusion or change of colour—not the faintest trace of
any secret consciousness of shame struggling to the surface appeared in
her face—that face which betrayed every other emotion with such
transparent clearness. No words that ever were spoken could have assured
me, as her look and manner now assured me, that the motive which I had
assigned for her writing the letter and sending it to Miss Fairlie was
plainly and distinctly the wrong one. That doubt, at any rate, was now set
at rest; but the very removal of it opened a new prospect of uncertainty.
The letter, as I knew from positive testimony, pointed at Sir Percival
Glyde, though it did not name him. She must have had some strong motive,
originating in some deep sense of injury, for secretly denouncing him to
Miss Fairlie in such terms as she had employed, and that motive was
unquestionably not to be traced to the loss of her innocence and her
character. Whatever wrong he might have inflicted on her was not of that
nature. Of what nature could it be?

“I don’t understand you,” she said, after evidently trying hard, and
trying in vain, to discover the meaning of the words I had last said to
her.

“Never mind,” I answered. “Let us go on with what we were talking about.
Tell me how long you stayed with Mrs. Clements in London, and how you came
here.”

“How long?” she repeated. “I stayed with Mrs. Clements till we both came
to this place, two days ago.”

“You are living in the village, then?” I said. “It is strange I should not
have heard of you, though you have only been here two days.”

“No, no, not in the village. Three miles away at a farm. Do you know the
farm? They call it Todd’s Corner.”

I remembered the place perfectly—we had often passed by it in our
drives. It was one of the oldest farms in the neighbourhood, situated in a
solitary, sheltered spot, inland at the junction of two hills.

“They are relations of Mrs. Clements at Todd’s Corner,” she went on, “and
they had often asked her to go and see them. She said she would go, and
take me with her, for the quiet and the fresh air. It was very kind, was
it not? I would have gone anywhere to be quiet, and safe, and out of the
way. But when I heard that Todd’s Corner was near Limmeridge—oh! I
was so happy I would have walked all the way barefoot to get there, and
see the schools and the village and Limmeridge House again. They are very
good people at Todd’s Corner. I hope I shall stay there a long time. There
is only one thing I don’t like about them, and don’t like about Mrs.
Clements——”

“What is it?”

“They will tease me about dressing all in white—they say it looks so
particular. How do they know? Mrs. Fairlie knew best. Mrs. Fairlie would
never have made me wear this ugly blue cloak! Ah! she was fond of white in
her lifetime, and here is white stone about her grave—and I am
making it whiter for her sake. She often wore white herself, and she
always dressed her little daughter in white. Is Miss Fairlie well and
happy? Does she wear white now, as she used when she was a girl?”

Her voice sank when she put the questions about Miss Fairlie, and she
turned her head farther and farther away from me. I thought I detected, in
the alteration of her manner, an uneasy consciousness of the risk she had
run in sending the anonymous letter, and I instantly determined so to
frame my answer as to surprise her into owning it.

“Miss Fairlie was not very well or very happy this morning,” I said.

She murmured a few words, but they were spoken so confusedly, and in such
a low tone, that I could not even guess at what they meant.

“Did you ask me why Miss Fairlie was neither well nor happy this morning?”
I continued.

“No,” she said quickly and eagerly—“oh no, I never asked that.”

“I will tell you without your asking,” I went on. “Miss Fairlie has
received your letter.”

She had been down on her knees for some little time past, carefully
removing the last weather-stains left about the inscription while we were
speaking together. The first sentence of the words I had just addressed to
her made her pause in her occupation, and turn slowly without rising from
her knees, so as to face me. The second sentence literally petrified her.
The cloth she had been holding dropped from her hands—her lips fell
apart—all the little colour that there was naturally in her face
left it in an instant.

“How do you know?” she said faintly. “Who showed it to you?” The blood
rushed back into her face—rushed overwhelmingly, as the sense rushed
upon her mind that her own words had betrayed her. She struck her hands
together in despair. “I never wrote it,” she gasped affrightedly; “I know
nothing about it!”

“Yes,” I said, “you wrote it, and you know about it. It was wrong to send
such a letter, it was wrong to frighten Miss Fairlie. If you had anything
to say that it was right and necessary for her to hear, you should have
gone yourself to Limmeridge House—you should have spoken to the
young lady with your own lips.”

She crouched down over the flat stone of the grave, till her face was
hidden on it, and made no reply.

“Miss Fairlie will be as good and kind to you as her mother was, if you
mean well,” I went on. “Miss Fairlie will keep your secret, and not let
you come to any harm. Will you see her to-morrow at the farm? Will you
meet her in the garden at Limmeridge House?”

“Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!” Her lips
murmured the words close on the grave-stone, murmured them in tones of
passionate endearment, to the dead remains beneath. “You know how I
love your child, for your sake! Oh, Mrs. Fairlie! Mrs. Fairlie! tell me
how to save her. Be my darling and my mother once more, and tell me what
to do for the best.”

I heard her lips kissing the stone—I saw her hands beating on it
passionately. The sound and the sight deeply affected me. I stooped down,
and took the poor helpless hands tenderly in mine, and tried to soothe
her.

It was useless. She snatched her hands from me, and never moved her face
from the stone. Seeing the urgent necessity of quieting her at any hazard
and by any means, I appealed to the only anxiety that she appeared to
feel, in connection with me and with my opinion of her—the anxiety
to convince me of her fitness to be mistress of her own actions.

“Come, come,” I said gently. “Try to compose yourself, or you will make me
alter my opinion of you. Don’t let me think that the person who put you in
the Asylum might have had some excuse——”

The next words died away on my lips. The instant I risked that chance
reference to the person who had put her in the Asylum she sprang up on her
knees. A most extraordinary and startling change passed over her. Her
face, at all ordinary times so touching to look at, in its nervous
sensitiveness, weakness, and uncertainty, became suddenly darkened by an
expression of maniacally intense hatred and fear, which communicated a
wild, unnatural force to every feature. Her eyes dilated in the dim
evening light, like the eyes of a wild animal. She caught up the cloth
that had fallen at her side, as if it had been a living creature that she
could kill, and crushed it in both her hands with such convulsive
strength, that the few drops of moisture left in it trickled down on the
stone beneath her.

“Talk of something else,” she said, whispering through her teeth. “I shall
lose myself if you talk of that.”

Every vestige of the gentler thoughts which had filled her mind hardly a
minute since seemed to be swept from it now. It was evident that the
impression left by Mrs. Fairlie’s kindness was not, as I had supposed, the
only strong impression on her memory. With the grateful remembrance of her
school-days at Limmeridge, there existed the vindictive remembrance of the
wrong inflicted on her by her confinement in the Asylum. Who had done that
wrong? Could it really be her mother?

It was hard to give up pursuing the inquiry to that final point, but I
forced myself to abandon all idea of continuing it. Seeing her as I saw
her now, it would have been cruel to think of anything but the necessity
and the humanity of restoring her composure.

“I will talk of nothing to distress you,” I said soothingly.

“You want something,” she answered sharply and suspiciously. “Don’t look
at me like that. Speak to me—tell me what you want.”

“I only want you to quiet yourself, and when you are calmer, to think over
what I have said.”

“Said?” She paused—twisted the cloth in her hands, backwards and
forwards, and whispered to herself, “What is it he said?” She turned again
towards me, and shook her head impatiently. “Why don’t you help me?” she
asked, with angry suddenness.

“Yes, yes,” I said, “I will help you, and you will soon remember. I ask
you to see Miss Fairlie to-morrow and to tell her the truth about the
letter.”

“Ah! Miss Fairlie—Fairlie—Fairlie——”

The mere utterance of the loved familiar name seemed to quiet her. Her
face softened and grew like itself again.

“You need have no fear of Miss Fairlie,” I continued, “and no fear of
getting into trouble through the letter. She knows so much about it
already, that you will have no difficulty in telling her all. There can be
little necessity for concealment where there is hardly anything left to
conceal. You mention no names in the letter; but Miss Fairlie knows that
the person you write of is Sir Percival Glyde——”

The instant I pronounced that name she started to her feet, and a scream
burst from her that rang through the churchyard, and made my heart leap in
me with the terror of it. The dark deformity of the expression which had
just left her face lowered on it once more, with doubled and trebled
intensity. The shriek at the name, the reiterated look of hatred and fear
that instantly followed, told all. Not even a last doubt now remained. Her
mother was guiltless of imprisoning her in the Asylum. A man had shut her
up—and that man was Sir Percival Glyde.

The scream had reached other ears than mine. On one side I heard the door
of the sexton’s cottage open; on the other I heard the voice of her
companion, the woman in the shawl, the woman whom she had spoken of as
Mrs. Clements.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” cried the voice from behind the clump of dwarf
trees.

In a moment more Mrs. Clements hurried into view.

“Who are you?” she cried, facing me resolutely as she set her foot on the
stile. “How dare you frighten a poor helpless woman like that?”

She was at Anne Catherick’s side, and had put one arm around her, before I
could answer. “What is it, my dear?” she said. “What has he done to you?”

“Nothing,” the poor creature answered. “Nothing. I’m only frightened.”

Mrs. Clements turned on me with a fearless indignation, for which I
respected her.

“I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I deserved that angry look,” I
said. “But I do not deserve it. I have unfortunately startled her without
intending it. This is not the first time she has seen me. Ask her
yourself, and she will tell you that I am incapable of willingly harming
her or any woman.”

I spoke distinctly, so that Anne Catherick might hear and understand me,
and I saw that the words and their meaning had reached her.

“Yes, yes,” she said—“he was good to me once—he helped me——”
She whispered the rest into her friend’s ear.

“Strange, indeed!” said Mrs. Clements, with a look of perplexity. “It
makes all the difference, though. I’m sorry I spoke so rough to you, sir;
but you must own that appearances looked suspicious to a stranger. It’s
more my fault than yours, for humouring her whims, and letting her be
alone in such a place as this. Come, my dear—come home now.”

I thought the good woman looked a little uneasy at the prospect of the
walk back, and I offered to go with them until they were both within sight
of home. Mrs. Clements thanked me civilly, and declined. She said they
were sure to meet some of the farm-labourers as soon as they got to the
moor.

“Try to forgive me,” I said, when Anne Catherick took her friend’s arm to
go away. Innocent as I had been of any intention to terrify and agitate
her, my heart smote me as I looked at the poor, pale, frightened face.

“I will try,” she answered. “But you know too much—I’m afraid you’ll
always frighten me now.”

Mrs. Clements glanced at me, and shook her head pityingly.

“Good-night, sir,” she said. “You couldn’t help it, I know; but I wish it
was me you had frightened, and not her.”

They moved away a few steps. I thought they had left me, but Anne suddenly
stopped, and separated herself from her friend.

“Wait a little,” she said. “I must say good-bye.”

She returned to the grave, rested both hands tenderly on the marble cross,
and kissed it.

“I’m better now,” she sighed, looking up at me quietly. “I forgive you.”

She joined her companion again, and they left the burial-ground. I saw
them stop near the church and speak to the sexton’s wife, who had come
from the cottage, and had waited, watching us from a distance. Then they
went on again up the path that led to the moor. I looked after Anne
Catherick as she disappeared, till all trace of her had faded in the
twilight—looked as anxiously and sorrowfully as if that was the last
I was to see in this weary world of the woman in white.

XIV

Half an hour later I was back at the house, and was informing Miss
Halcombe of all that had happened.

She listened to me from beginning to end with a steady, silent attention,
which, in a woman of her temperament and disposition, was the strongest
proof that could be offered of the serious manner in which my narrative
affected her.

“My mind misgives me,” was all she said when I had done. “My mind misgives
me sadly about the future.”

“The future may depend,” I suggested, “on the use we make of the present.
It is not improbable that Anne Catherick may speak more readily and
unreservedly to a woman than she has spoken to me. If Miss Fairlie——”

“Not to be thought of for a moment,” interposed Miss Halcombe, in her most
decided manner.

“Let me suggest, then,” I continued, “that you should see Anne Catherick
yourself, and do all you can to win her confidence. For my own part, I
shrink from the idea of alarming the poor creature a second time, as I
have most unhappily alarmed her already. Do you see any objection to
accompanying me to the farmhouse to-morrow?”

“None whatever. I will go anywhere and do anything to serve Laura’s
interests. What did you say the place was called?”

“You must know it well. It is called Todd’s Corner.”

“Certainly. Todd’s Corner is one of Mr. Fairlie’s farms. Our dairymaid
here is the farmer’s second daughter. She goes backwards and forwards
constantly between this house and her father’s farm, and she may have
heard or seen something which it may be useful to us to know. Shall I
ascertain, at once, if the girl is downstairs?”

She rang the bell, and sent the servant with his message. He returned, and
announced that the dairymaid was then at the farm. She had not been there
for the last three days, and the housekeeper had given her leave to go
home for an hour or two that evening.

“I can speak to her to-morrow,” said Miss Halcombe, when the servant had
left the room again. “In the meantime, let me thoroughly understand the
object to be gained by my interview with Anne Catherick. Is there no doubt
in your mind that the person who confined her in the Asylum was Sir
Percival Glyde?”

“There is not the shadow of a doubt. The only mystery that remains is the
mystery of his motive. Looking to the great difference between his
station in life and hers, which seems to preclude all idea of the most
distant relationship between them, it is of the last importance—even
assuming that she really required to be placed under restraint—to
know why he should have been the person to assume the serious
responsibility of shutting her up——”

“In a private Asylum, I think you said?”

“Yes, in a private Asylum, where a sum of money, which no poor person
could afford to give, must have been paid for her maintenance as a
patient.”

“I see where the doubt lies, Mr. Hartright, and I promise you that it
shall be set at rest, whether Anne Catherick assists us to-morrow or not.
Sir Percival Glyde shall not be long in this house without satisfying Mr.
Gilmore, and satisfying me. My sister’s future is my dearest care in life,
and I have influence enough over her to give me some power, where her
marriage is concerned, in the disposal of it.”

We parted for the night.

After breakfast the next morning, an obstacle, which the events of the
evening before had put out of my memory, interposed to prevent our
proceeding immediately to the farm. This was my last day at Limmeridge
House, and it was necessary, as soon as the post came in, to follow Miss
Halcombe’s advice, and to ask Mr. Fairlie’s permission to shorten my
engagement by a month, in consideration of an unforeseen necessity for my
return to London.

Fortunately for the probability of this excuse, so far as appearances were
concerned, the post brought me two letters from London friends that
morning. I took them away at once to my own room, and sent the servant
with a message to Mr. Fairlie, requesting to know when I could see him on
a matter of business.

I awaited the man’s return, free from the slightest feeling of anxiety
about the manner in which his master might receive my application. With
Mr. Fairlie’s leave or without it, I must go. The consciousness of having
now taken the first step on the dreary journey which was henceforth to
separate my life from Miss Fairlie’s seemed to have blunted my sensibility
to every consideration connected with myself. I had done with my poor
man’s touchy pride—I had done with all my little artist vanities. No
insolence of Mr. Fairlie’s, if he chose to be insolent, could wound me
now.

The servant returned with a message for which I was not unprepared. Mr.
Fairlie regretted that the state of his health, on that particular
morning, was such as to preclude all hope of his having the pleasure of
receiving me. He begged, therefore, that I would accept his apologies, and
kindly communicate what I had to say in the form of a letter. Similar
messages to this had reached me, at various intervals, during my three
months’ residence in the house. Throughout the whole of that period Mr.
Fairlie had been rejoiced to “possess” me, but had never been well enough
to see me for a second time. The servant took every fresh batch of
drawings that I mounted and restored back to his master with my
“respects,” and returned empty-handed with Mr. Fairlie’s “kind
compliments,” “best thanks,” and “sincere regrets” that the state of his
health still obliged him to remain a solitary prisoner in his own room. A
more satisfactory arrangement to both sides could not possibly have been
adopted. It would be hard to say which of us, under the circumstances,
felt the most grateful sense of obligation to Mr. Fairlie’s accommodating
nerves.

I sat down at once to write the letter, expressing myself in it as
civilly, as clearly, and as briefly as possible. Mr. Fairlie did not hurry
his reply. Nearly an hour elapsed before the answer was placed in my
hands. It was written with beautiful regularity and neatness of character,
in violet-coloured ink, on note-paper as smooth as ivory and almost as
thick as cardboard, and it addressed me in these terms—

“Mr. Fairlie’s compliments to Mr. Hartright. Mr. Fairlie is more surprised
and disappointed than he can say (in the present state of his health) by
Mr. Hartright’s application. Mr. Fairlie is not a man of business, but he
has consulted his steward, who is, and that person confirms Mr. Fairlie’s
opinion that Mr. Hartright’s request to be allowed to break his engagement
cannot be justified by any necessity whatever, excepting perhaps a case of
life and death. If the highly-appreciative feeling towards Art and its
professors, which it is the consolation and happiness of Mr. Fairlie’s
suffering existence to cultivate, could be easily shaken, Mr. Hartright’s
present proceeding would have shaken it. It has not done so—except
in the instance of Mr. Hartright himself.

“Having stated his opinion—so far, that is to say, as acute nervous
suffering will allow him to state anything—Mr. Fairlie has nothing
to add but the expression of his decision, in reference to the highly
irregular application that has been made to him. Perfect repose of body
and mind being to the last degree important in his case, Mr. Fairlie will
not suffer Mr. Hartright to disturb that repose by remaining in the house
under circumstances of an essentially irritating nature to both sides.
Accordingly, Mr. Fairlie waives his right of refusal, purely with a view
to the preservation of his own tranquillity—and informs Mr.
Hartright that he may go.”

I folded the letter up, and put it away with my other papers. The time had
been when I should have resented it as an insult—I accepted it now
as a written release from my engagement. It was off my mind, it was almost
out of my memory, when I went downstairs to the breakfast-room, and
informed Miss Halcombe that I was ready to walk with her to the farm.

“Has Mr. Fairlie given you a satisfactory answer?” she asked as we left
the house.

“He has allowed me to go, Miss Halcombe.”

She looked up at me quickly, and then, for the first time since I had
known her, took my arm of her own accord. No words could have expressed so
delicately that she understood how the permission to leave my employment
had been granted, and that she gave me her sympathy, not as my superior,
but as my friend. I had not felt the man’s insolent letter, but I felt
deeply the woman’s atoning kindness.

On our way to the farm we arranged that Miss Halcombe was to enter the
house alone, and that I was to wait outside, within call. We adopted this
mode of proceeding from an apprehension that my presence, after what had
happened in the churchyard the evening before, might have the effect of
renewing Anne Catherick’s nervous dread, and of rendering her additionally
distrustful of the advances of a lady who was a stranger to her. Miss
Halcombe left me, with the intention of speaking, in the first instance,
to the farmer’s wife (of whose friendly readiness to help her in any way
she was well assured), while I waited for her in the near neighbourhood of
the house.

I had fully expected to be left alone for some time. To my surprise,
however, little more than five minutes had elapsed before Miss Halcombe
returned.

“Does Anne Catherick refuse to see you?” I asked in astonishment.

“Anne Catherick is gone,” replied Miss Halcombe.

“Gone?”

“Gone with Mrs. Clements. They both left the farm at eight o’clock this
morning.”

I could say nothing—I could only feel that our last chance of
discovery had gone with them.

“All that Mrs. Todd knows about her guests, I know,” Miss Halcombe went
on, “and it leaves me, as it leaves her, in the dark. They both came back
safe last night, after they left you, and they passed the first part of
the evening with Mr. Todd’s family as usual. Just before supper-time,
however, Anne Catherick startled them all by being suddenly seized with
faintness. She had had a similar attack, of a less alarming kind, on the
day she arrived at the farm; and Mrs. Todd had connected it, on that
occasion, with something she was reading at the time in our local
newspaper, which lay on the farm table, and which she had taken up only a
minute or two before.”

“Does Mrs. Todd know what particular passage in the newspaper affected her
in that way?” I inquired.

“No,” replied Miss Halcombe. “She had looked it over, and had seen nothing
in it to agitate any one. I asked leave, however, to look it over in my
turn, and at the very first page I opened I found that the editor had
enriched his small stock of news by drawing upon our family affairs, and
had published my sister’s marriage engagement, among his other
announcements, copied from the London papers, of Marriages in High Life. I
concluded at once that this was the paragraph which had so strangely
affected Anne Catherick, and I thought I saw in it, also, the origin of
the letter which she sent to our house the next day.”

“There can be no doubt in either case. But what did you hear about her
second attack of faintness yesterday evening?”

“Nothing. The cause of it is a complete mystery. There was no stranger in
the room. The only visitor was our dairymaid, who, as I told you, is one
of Mr. Todd’s daughters, and the only conversation was the usual gossip
about local affairs. They heard her cry out, and saw her turn deadly pale,
without the slightest apparent reason. Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Clements took
her upstairs, and Mrs. Clements remained with her. They were heard talking
together until long after the usual bedtime, and early this morning Mrs.
Clements took Mrs. Todd aside, and amazed her beyond all power of
expression by saying that they must go. The only explanation Mrs. Todd
could extract from her guest was, that something had happened, which was
not the fault of any one at the farmhouse, but which was serious enough to
make Anne Catherick resolve to leave Limmeridge immediately. It was quite
useless to press Mrs. Clements to be more explicit. She only shook her
head, and said that, for Anne’s sake, she must beg and pray that no one
would question her. All she could repeat, with every appearance of being
seriously agitated herself, was that Anne must go, that she must go with
her, and that the destination to which they might both betake themselves
must be kept a secret from everybody. I spare you the recital of Mrs.
Todd’s hospitable remonstrances and refusals. It ended in her driving them
both to the nearest station, more than three hours since. She tried hard
on the way to get them to speak more plainly, but without success; and she
set them down outside the station-door, so hurt and offended by the
unceremonious abruptness of their departure and their unfriendly
reluctance to place the least confidence in her, that she drove away in
anger, without so much as stopping to bid them good-bye. That is exactly
what has taken place. Search your own memory, Mr. Hartright, and tell me
if anything happened in the burial-ground yesterday evening which can at
all account for the extraordinary departure of those two women this
morning.”

“I should like to account first, Miss Halcombe, for the sudden change in
Anne Catherick which alarmed them at the farmhouse, hours after she and I
had parted, and when time enough had elapsed to quiet any violent
agitation that I might have been unfortunate enough to cause. Did you
inquire particularly about the gossip which was going on in the room when
she turned faint?”

“Yes. But Mrs. Todd’s household affairs seem to have divided her attention
that evening with the talk in the farmhouse parlour. She could only tell
me that it was ‘just the news,’—meaning, I suppose, that they all
talked as usual about each other.”

“The dairymaid’s memory may be better than her mother’s,” I said. “It may
be as well for you to speak to the girl, Miss Halcombe, as soon as we get
back.”

My suggestion was acted on the moment we returned to the house. Miss
Halcombe led me round to the servants’ offices, and we found the girl in
the dairy, with her sleeves tucked up to her shoulders, cleaning a large
milk-pan and singing blithely over her work.

“I have brought this gentleman to see your dairy, Hannah,” said Miss
Halcombe. “It is one of the sights of the house, and it always does you
credit.”

The girl blushed and curtseyed, and said shyly that she hoped she always
did her best to keep things neat and clean.

“We have just come from your father’s,” Miss Halcombe continued. “You were
there yesterday evening, I hear, and you found visitors at the house?”

“Yes, miss.”

“One of them was taken faint and ill, I am told. I suppose nothing was
said or done to frighten her? You were not talking of anything very
terrible, were you?”

“Oh no, miss!” said the girl, laughing. “We were only talking of the
news.”

“Your sisters told you the news at Todd’s Corner, I suppose?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And you told them the news at Limmeridge House?”

“Yes, miss. And I’m quite sure nothing was said to frighten the poor
thing, for I was talking when she was taken ill. It gave me quite a turn,
miss, to see it, never having been taken faint myself.”

Before any more questions could be put to her, she was called away to
receive a basket of eggs at the dairy door. As she left us I whispered to
Miss Halcombe—

“Ask her if she happened to mention, last night, that visitors were
expected at Limmeridge House.”

Miss Halcombe showed me, by a look, that she understood, and put the
question as soon as the dairymaid returned to us.

“Oh yes, miss, I mentioned that,” said the girl simply. “The company
coming, and the accident to the brindled cow, was all the news I had to
take to the farm.”

“Did you mention names? Did you tell them that Sir Percival Glyde was
expected on Monday?”

“Yes, miss—I told them Sir Percival Glyde was coming. I hope there
was no harm in it—I hope I didn’t do wrong.”

“Oh no, no harm. Come, Mr. Hartright, Hannah will begin to think us in the
way, if we interrupt her any longer over her work.”

We stopped and looked at one another the moment we were alone again.

“Is there any doubt in your mind, now, Miss Halcombe?”

“Sir Percival Glyde shall remove that doubt, Mr. Hartright—or Laura
Fairlie shall never be his wife.”

XV

As we walked round to the front of the house a fly from the railway
approached us along the drive. Miss Halcombe waited on the door-steps
until the fly drew up, and then advanced to shake hands with an old
gentleman, who got out briskly the moment the steps were let down. Mr.
Gilmore had arrived.

I looked at him, when we were introduced to each other, with an interest
and a curiosity which I could hardly conceal. This old man was to remain
at Limmeridge House after I had left it, he was to hear Sir Percival
Glyde’s explanation, and was to give Miss Halcombe the assistance of his
experience in forming her judgment; he was to wait until the question of
the marriage was set at rest; and his hand, if that question were decided
in the affirmative, was to draw the settlement which bound Miss Fairlie
irrevocably to her engagement. Even then, when I knew nothing by
comparison with what I know now, I looked at the family lawyer with an
interest which I had never felt before in the presence of any man
breathing who was a total stranger to me.

In external appearance Mr. Gilmore was the exact opposite of the
conventional idea of an old lawyer. His complexion was florid—his
white hair was worn rather long and kept carefully brushed—his black
coat, waistcoat, and trousers fitted him with perfect neatness—his
white cravat was carefully tied, and his lavender-coloured kid gloves
might have adorned the hands of a fashionable clergyman, without fear and
without reproach. His manners were pleasantly marked by the formal grace
and refinement of the old school of politeness, quickened by the
invigorating sharpness and readiness of a man whose business in life
obliges him always to keep his faculties in good working order. A sanguine
constitution and fair prospects to begin with—a long subsequent
career of creditable and comfortable prosperity—a cheerful,
diligent, widely-respected old age—such were the general impressions
I derived from my introduction to Mr. Gilmore, and it is but fair to him
to add, that the knowledge I gained by later and better experience only
tended to confirm them.

I left the old gentleman and Miss Halcombe to enter the house together,
and to talk of family matters undisturbed by the restraint of a stranger’s
presence. They crossed the hall on their way to the drawing-room, and I
descended the steps again to wander about the garden alone.

My hours were numbered at Limmeridge House—my departure the next
morning was irrevocably settled—my share in the investigation which
the anonymous letter had rendered necessary was at an end. No harm could
be done to any one but myself if I let my heart loose again, for the
little time that was left me, from the cold cruelty of restraint which
necessity had forced me to inflict upon it, and took my farewell of the
scenes which were associated with the brief dream-time of my happiness and
my love.

I turned instinctively to the walk beneath my study-window, where I had
seen her the evening before with her little dog, and followed the path
which her dear feet had trodden so often, till I came to the wicket gate
that led into her rose garden. The winter bareness spread drearily over it
now. The flowers that she had taught me to distinguish by their names, the
flowers that I had taught her to paint from, were gone, and the tiny white
paths that led between the beds were damp and green already. I went on to
the avenue of trees, where we had breathed together the warm fragrance of
August evenings, where we had admired together the myriad combinations of
shade and sunlight that dappled the ground at our feet. The leaves fell
about me from the groaning branches, and the earthy decay in the
atmosphere chilled me to the bones. A little farther on, and I was out of
the grounds, and following the lane that wound gently upward to the
nearest hills. The old felled tree by the wayside, on which we had sat to
rest, was sodden with rain, and the tuft of ferns and grasses which I had
drawn for her, nestling under the rough stone wall in front of us, had
turned to a pool of water, stagnating round an island of draggled weeds. I
gained the summit of the hill, and looked at the view which we had so
often admired in the happier time. It was cold and barren—it was no
longer the view that I remembered. The sunshine of her presence was far
from me—the charm of her voice no longer murmured in my ear. She had
talked to me, on the spot from which I now looked down, of her father, who
was her last surviving parent—had told me how fond of each other
they had been, and how sadly she missed him still when she entered certain
rooms in the house, and when she took up forgotten occupations and
amusements with which he had been associated. Was the view that I had
seen, while listening to those words, the view that I saw now, standing on
the hill-top by myself? I turned and left it—I wound my way back
again, over the moor, and round the sandhills, down to the beach. There
was the white rage of the surf, and the multitudinous glory of the leaping
waves—but where was the place on which she had once drawn idle
figures with her parasol in the sand—the place where we had sat
together, while she talked to me about myself and my home, while she asked
me a woman’s minutely observant questions about my mother and my sister,
and innocently wondered whether I should ever leave my lonely chambers and
have a wife and a house of my own? Wind and wave had long since smoothed
out the trace of her which she had left in those marks on the sand. I
looked over the wide monotony of the sea-side prospect, and the place in
which we two had idled away the sunny hours was as lost to me as if I had
never known it, as strange to me as if I stood already on a foreign shore.

The empty silence of the beach struck cold to my heart. I returned to the
house and the garden, where traces were left to speak of her at every
turn.

On the west terrace walk I met Mr. Gilmore. He was evidently in search of
me, for he quickened his pace when we caught sight of each other. The
state of my spirits little fitted me for the society of a stranger; but
the meeting was inevitable, and I resigned myself to make the best of it.

“You are the very person I wanted to see,” said the old gentleman. “I had
two words to say to you, my dear sir; and if you have no objection I will
avail myself of the present opportunity. To put it plainly, Miss Halcombe
and I have been talking over family affairs—affairs which are the
cause of my being here—and in the course of our conversation she was
naturally led to tell me of this unpleasant matter connected with the
anonymous letter, and of the share which you have most creditably and
properly taken in the proceedings so far. That share, I quite understand,
gives you an interest which you might not otherwise have felt, in knowing
that the future management of the investigation which you have begun will
be placed in safe hands. My dear sir, make yourself quite easy on that
point—it will be placed in my hands.”

“You are, in every way, Mr. Gilmore, much fitter to advise and to act in
the matter than I am. Is it an indiscretion on my part to ask if you have
decided yet on a course of proceeding?”

“So far as it is possible to decide, Mr. Hartright, I have decided. I mean
to send a copy of the letter, accompanied by a statement of the
circumstances, to Sir Percival Glyde’s solicitor in London, with whom I
have some acquaintance. The letter itself I shall keep here to show to Sir
Percival as soon as he arrives. The tracing of the two women I have
already provided for, by sending one of Mr. Fairlie’s servants—a
confidential person—to the station to make inquiries. The man has
his money and his directions, and he will follow the women in the event of
his finding any clue. This is all that can be done until Sir Percival
comes on Monday. I have no doubt myself that every explanation which can
be expected from a gentleman and a man of honour, he will readily give.
Sir Percival stands very high, sir—an eminent position, a reputation
above suspicion—I feel quite easy about results—quite easy, I
am rejoiced to assure you. Things of this sort happen constantly in my
experience. Anonymous letters—unfortunate woman—sad state of
society. I don’t deny that there are peculiar complications in this case;
but the case itself is, most unhappily, common—common.”

“I am afraid, Mr. Gilmore, I have the misfortune to differ from you in the
view I take of the case.”

“Just so, my dear sir—just so. I am an old man, and I take the
practical view. You are a young man, and you take the romantic view. Let
us not dispute about our views. I live professionally in an atmosphere of
disputation, Mr. Hartright, and I am only too glad to escape from it, as I
am escaping here. We will wait for events—yes, yes, yes—we
will wait for events. Charming place this. Good shooting? Probably not,
none of Mr. Fairlie’s land is preserved, I think. Charming place, though,
and delightful people. You draw and paint, I hear, Mr. Hartright? Enviable
accomplishment. What style?”

We dropped into general conversation, or rather, Mr. Gilmore talked and I
listened. My attention was far from him, and from the topics on which he
discoursed so fluently. The solitary walk of the last two hours had
wrought its effect on me—it had set the idea in my mind of hastening
my departure from Limmeridge House. Why should I prolong the hard trial of
saying farewell by one unnecessary minute? What further service was
required of me by any one? There was no useful purpose to be served by my
stay in Cumberland—there was no restriction of time in the
permission to leave which my employer had granted to me. Why not end it
there and then?

I determined to end it. There were some hours of daylight still left—there
was no reason why my journey back to London should not begin on that
afternoon. I made the first civil excuse that occurred to me for leaving
Mr. Gilmore, and returned at once to the house.

On my way up to my own room I met Miss Halcombe on the stairs. She saw, by
the hurry of my movements and the change in my manner, that I had some new
purpose in view, and asked what had happened.

I told her the reasons which induced me to think of hastening my
departure, exactly as I have told them here.

“No, no,” she said, earnestly and kindly, “leave us like a friend—break
bread with us once more. Stay here and dine, stay here and help us to
spend our last evening with you as happily, as like our first evenings, as
we can. It is my invitation—Mrs. Vesey’s invitation——”
she hesitated a little, and then added, “Laura’s invitation as well.”

I promised to remain. God knows I had no wish to leave even the shadow of
a sorrowful impression with any one of them.

My own room was the best place for me till the dinner bell rang. I waited
there till it was time to go downstairs.

I had not spoken to Miss Fairlie—I had not even seen her—all
that day. The first meeting with her, when I entered the drawing-room, was
a hard trial to her self-control and to mine. She, too, had done her best
to make our last evening renew the golden bygone time—the time that
could never come again. She had put on the dress which I used to admire
more than any other that she possessed—a dark blue silk, trimmed
quaintly and prettily with old-fashioned lace; she came forward to meet me
with her former readiness—she gave me her hand with the frank,
innocent good-will of happier days. The cold fingers that trembled round
mine—the pale cheeks with a bright red spot burning in the midst of
them—the faint smile that struggled to live on her lips and died
away from them while I looked at it, told me at what sacrifice of herself
her outward composure was maintained. My heart could take her no closer to
me, or I should have loved her then as I had never loved her yet.

Mr. Gilmore was a great assistance to us. He was in high good-humour, and
he led the conversation with unflagging spirit. Miss Halcombe seconded him
resolutely, and I did all I could to follow her example. The kind blue
eyes, whose slightest changes of expression I had learnt to interpret so
well, looked at me appealingly when we first sat down to table. Help my
sister—the sweet anxious face seemed to say—help my sister,
and you will help me.

We got through the dinner, to all outward appearance at least, happily
enough. When the ladies had risen from table, and Mr. Gilmore and I were
left alone in the dining-room, a new interest presented itself to occupy
our attention, and to give me an opportunity of quieting myself by a few
minutes of needful and welcome silence. The servant who had been
despatched to trace Anne Catherick and Mrs. Clements returned with his
report, and was shown into the dining-room immediately.

“Well,” said Mr. Gilmore, “what have you found out?”

“I have found out, sir,” answered the man, “that both the women took
tickets at our station here for Carlisle.”

“You went to Carlisle, of course, when you heard that?”

“I did, sir, but I am sorry to say I could find no further trace of them.”

“You inquired at the railway?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And at the different inns?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you left the statement I wrote for you at the police station?”

“I did, sir.”

“Well, my friend, you have done all you could, and I have done all I
could, and there the matter must rest till further notice. We have played
our trump cards, Mr. Hartright,” continued the old gentleman when the
servant had withdrawn. “For the present, at least, the women have
outmanoeuvred us, and our only resource now is to wait till Sir Percival
Glyde comes here on Monday next. Won’t you fill your glass again? Good
bottle of port, that—sound, substantial, old wine. I have got better
in my own cellar, though.”

We returned to the drawing-room—the room in which the happiest
evenings of my life had been passed—the room which, after this last
night, I was never to see again. Its aspect was altered since the days had
shortened and the weather had grown cold. The glass doors on the terrace
side were closed, and hidden by thick curtains. Instead of the soft
twilight obscurity, in which we used to sit, the bright radiant glow of
lamplight now dazzled my eyes. All was changed—indoors and out all
was changed.

Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore sat down together at the card-table—Mrs.
Vesey took her customary chair. There was no restraint on the disposal of
their evening, and I felt the restraint on the disposal of mine all
the more painfully from observing it. I saw Miss Fairlie lingering near
the music-stand. The time had been when I might have joined her there. I
waited irresolutely—I knew neither where to go nor what to do next.
She cast one quick glance at me, took a piece of music suddenly from the
stand, and came towards me of her own accord.

“Shall I play some of those little melodies of Mozart’s which you used to
like so much?” she asked, opening the music nervously, and looking down at
it while she spoke.

Before I could thank her she hastened to the piano. The chair near it,
which I had always been accustomed to occupy, stood empty. She struck a
few chords—then glanced round at me—then looked back again at
her music.

“Won’t you take your old place?” she said, speaking very abruptly and in
very low tones.

“I may take it on the last night,” I answered.

She did not reply—she kept her attention riveted on the music—music
which she knew by memory, which she had played over and over again, in
former times, without the book. I only knew that she had heard me, I only
knew that she was aware of my being close to her, by seeing the red spot
on the cheek that was nearest to me fade out, and the face grow pale all
over.

“I am very sorry you are going,” she said, her voice almost sinking to a
whisper, her eyes looking more and more intently at the music, her fingers
flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish energy which I
had never noticed in her before.

“I shall remember those kind words, Miss Fairlie, long after to-morrow has
come and gone.”

The paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned it farther away from
me.

“Don’t speak of to-morrow,” she said. “Let the music speak to us of
to-night, in a happier language than ours.”

Her lips trembled—a faint sigh fluttered from them, which she tried
vainly to suppress. Her fingers wavered on the piano—she struck a
false note, confused herself in trying to set it right, and dropped her
hands angrily on her lap. Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore looked up in
astonishment from the card-table at which they were playing. Even Mrs.
Vesey, dozing in her chair, woke at the sudden cessation of the music, and
inquired what had happened.

“You play at whist, Mr. Hartright?” asked Miss Halcombe, with her eyes
directed significantly at the place I occupied.

I knew what she meant—I knew she was right, and I rose at once to go
to the card-table. As I left the piano Miss Fairlie turned a page of the
music, and touched the keys again with a surer hand.

“I will play it,” she said, striking the notes almost passionately.
“I will play it on the last night.”

“Come, Mrs. Vesey,” said Miss Halcombe, “Mr. Gilmore and I are tired of
ecarte—come and be Mr. Hartright’s partner at whist.”

The old lawyer smiled satirically. His had been the winning hand, and he
had just turned up a king. He evidently attributed Miss Halcombe’s abrupt
change in the card-table arrangements to a lady’s inability to play the
losing game.

The rest of the evening passed without a word or a look from her. She kept
her place at the piano, and I kept mine at the card-table. She played
unintermittingly—played as if the music was her only refuge from
herself. Sometimes her fingers touched the notes with a lingering fondness—a
soft, plaintive, dying tenderness, unutterably beautiful and mournful to
hear; sometimes they faltered and failed her, or hurried over the
instrument mechanically, as if their task was a burden to them. But still,
change and waver as they might in the expression they imparted to the
music, their resolution to play never faltered. She only rose from the
piano when we all rose to say good night.

Mrs. Vesey was the nearest to the door, and the first to shake hands with
me.

“I shall not see you again, Mr. Hartright,” said the old lady. “I am truly
sorry you are going away. You have been very kind and attentive, and an
old woman like me feels kindness and attention. I wish you happy, sir—I
wish you a kind good-bye.”

Mr. Gilmore came next.

“I hope we shall have a future opportunity of bettering our acquaintance,
Mr. Hartright. You quite understand about that little matter of business
being safe in my hands? Yes, yes, of course. Bless me, how cold it is!
Don’t let me keep you at the door. Bon voyage, my dear sir—bon
voyage, as the French say.”

Miss Halcombe followed.

“Half-past seven to-morrow morning,” she said—then added in a
whisper, “I have heard and seen more than you think. Your conduct to-night
has made me your friend for life.”

Miss Fairlie came last. I could not trust myself to look at her when I
took her hand, and when I thought of the next morning.

“My departure must be a very early one,” I said. “I shall be gone, Miss
Fairlie, before you——”

“No, no,” she interposed hastily, “not before I am out of my room. I shall
be down to breakfast with Marian. I am not so ungrateful, not so forgetful
of the past three months——”

Her voice failed her, her hand closed gently round mine—then dropped
it suddenly. Before I could say “Good-night” she was gone.

The end comes fast to meet me—comes inevitably, as the light of the
last morning came at Limmeridge House.

It was barely half-past seven when I went downstairs, but I found them
both at the breakfast-table waiting for me. In the chill air, in the dim
light, in the gloomy morning silence of the house, we three sat down
together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. The struggle to preserve
appearances was hopeless and useless, and I rose to end it.

As I held out my hand, as Miss Halcombe, who was nearest to me, took it,
Miss Fairlie turned away suddenly and hurried from the room.

“Better so,” said Miss Halcombe, when the door had closed—“better
so, for you and for her.”

I waited a moment before I could speak—it was hard to lose her,
without a parting word or a parting look. I controlled myself—I
tried to take leave of Miss Halcombe in fitting terms; but all the
farewell words I would fain have spoken dwindled to one sentence.

“Have I deserved that you should write to me?” was all I could say.

“You have nobly deserved everything that I can do for you, as long as we
both live. Whatever the end is you shall know it.”

“And if I can ever be of help again, at any future time, long after the
memory of my presumption and my folly is forgotten . . .”

I could add no more. My voice faltered, my eyes moistened in spite of me.

She caught me by both hands—she pressed them with the strong, steady
grasp of a man—her dark eyes glittered—her brown complexion
flushed deep—the force and energy of her face glowed and grew
beautiful with the pure inner light of her generosity and her pity.

“I will trust you—if ever the time comes I will trust you as my
friend and her friend, as my brother and her
brother.” She stopped, drew me nearer to her—the fearless, noble
creature—touched my forehead, sister-like, with her lips, and called
me by my Christian name. “God bless you, Walter!” she said. “Wait here
alone and compose yourself—I had better not stay for both our sakes—I
had better see you go from the balcony upstairs.”

She left the room. I turned away towards the window, where nothing faced
me but the lonely autumn landscape—I turned away to master myself,
before I too left the room in my turn, and left it for ever.

A minute passed—it could hardly have been more—when I heard
the door open again softly, and the rustling of a woman’s dress on the
carpet moved towards me. My heart beat violently as I turned round. Miss
Fairlie was approaching me from the farther end of the room.

She stopped and hesitated when our eyes met, and when she saw that we were
alone. Then, with that courage which women lose so often in the small
emergency, and so seldom in the great, she came on nearer to me, strangely
pale and strangely quiet, drawing one hand after her along the table by
which she walked, and holding something at her side in the other, which
was hidden by the folds of her dress.

“I only went into the drawing-room,” she said, “to look for this. It may
remind you of your visit here, and of the friends you leave behind you.
You told me I had improved very much when I did it, and I thought you
might like——”

She turned her head away, and offered me a little sketch, drawn throughout
by her own pencil, of the summer-house in which we had first met. The
paper trembled in her hand as she held it out to me—trembled in mine
as I took it from her.

I was afraid to say what I felt—I only answered, “It shall never
leave me—all my life long it shall be the treasure that I prize
most. I am very grateful for it—very grateful to you, for not
letting me go away without bidding you good-bye.”

“Oh!” she said innocently, “how could I let you go, after we have passed
so many happy days together!”

“Those days may never return, Miss Fairlie—my way of life and yours
are very far apart. But if a time should come, when the devotion of my
whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment’s happiness, or
spare you a moment’s sorrow, will you try to remember the poor
drawing-master who has taught you? Miss Halcombe has promised to trust me—will
you promise too?”

The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her
gathering tears.

“I promise it,” she said in broken tones. “Oh, don’t look at me like that!
I promise it with all my heart.”

I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand.

“You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy future is
the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the dear
object of my hopes too?”

The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested one trembling hand on
the table to steady herself while she gave me the other. I took it in mine—I
held it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my lips
pressed it—not in love; oh, not in love, at that last moment, but in
the agony and the self-abandonment of despair.

“For God’s sake, leave me!” she said faintly.

The confession of her heart’s secret burst from her in those pleading
words. I had no right to hear them, no right to answer them—they
were the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from
the room. It was all over. I dropped her hand, I said no more. The
blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and I dashed them away to look
at her for the last time. One look as she sank into a chair, as her arms
fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily. One farewell
look, and the door had closed upon her—the great gulf of separation
had opened between us—the image of Laura Fairlie was a memory of the
past already.

The End of Hartright’s Narrative.

THE STORY CONTINUED BY VINCENT GILMORE

(of Chancery Lane, Solicitor)

I

I write these lines at the request of my friend, Mr. Walter Hartright.
They are intended to convey a description of certain events which
seriously affected Miss Fairlie’s interests, and which took place after
the period of Mr. Hartright’s departure from Limmeridge House.

There is no need for me to say whether my own opinion does or does not
sanction the disclosure of the remarkable family story, of which my
narrative forms an important component part. Mr. Hartright has taken that
responsibility on himself, and circumstances yet to be related will show
that he has amply earned the right to do so, if he chooses to exercise it.
The plan he has adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most
truthful and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each
successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were directly
concerned in those events at the time of their occurrence. My appearance
here, as narrator, is the necessary consequence of this arrangement. I was
present during the sojourn of Sir Percival Glyde in Cumberland, and was
personally concerned in one important result of his short residence under
Mr. Fairlie’s roof. It is my duty, therefore, to add these new links to
the chain of events, and to take up the chain itself at the point where,
for the present only, Mr. Hartright has dropped it.

I arrived at Limmeridge House on Friday the second of November.

My object was to remain at Mr. Fairlie’s until the arrival of Sir Percival
Glyde. If that event led to the appointment of any given day for Sir
Percival’s union with Miss Fairlie, I was to take the necessary
instructions back with me to London, and to occupy myself in drawing the
lady’s marriage-settlement.

On the Friday I was not favoured by Mr. Fairlie with an interview. He had
been, or had fancied himself to be, an invalid for years past, and he was
not well enough to receive me. Miss Halcombe was the first member of the
family whom I saw. She met me at the house door, and introduced me to Mr.
Hartright, who had been staying at Limmeridge for some time past.

I did not see Miss Fairlie until later in the day, at dinner-time. She was
not looking well, and I was sorry to observe it. She is a sweet lovable
girl, as amiable and attentive to every one about her as her excellent
mother used to be—though, personally speaking, she takes after her
father. Mrs. Fairlie had dark eyes and hair, and her elder daughter, Miss
Halcombe, strongly reminds me of her. Miss Fairlie played to us in the
evening—not so well as usual, I thought. We had a rubber at whist, a
mere profanation, so far as play was concerned, of that noble game. I had
been favourably impressed by Mr. Hartright on our first introduction to
one another, but I soon discovered that he was not free from the social
failings incidental to his age. There are three things that none of the
young men of the present generation can do. They can’t sit over their
wine, they can’t play at whist, and they can’t pay a lady a compliment.
Mr. Hartright was no exception to the general rule. Otherwise, even in
those early days and on that short acquaintance, he struck me as being a
modest and gentlemanlike young man.

So the Friday passed. I say nothing about the more serious matters which
engaged my attention on that day—the anonymous letter to Miss
Fairlie, the measures I thought it right to adopt when the matter was
mentioned to me, and the conviction I entertained that every possible
explanation of the circumstances would be readily afforded by Sir Percival
Glyde, having all been fully noticed, as I understand, in the narrative
which precedes this.

On the Saturday Mr. Hartright had left before I got down to breakfast.
Miss Fairlie kept her room all day, and Miss Halcombe appeared to me to be
out of spirits. The house was not what it used to be in the time of Mr.
and Mrs. Philip Fairlie. I took a walk by myself in the forenoon, and
looked about at some of the places which I first saw when I was staying at
Limmeridge to transact family business, more than thirty years since. They
were not what they used to be either.

At two o’clock Mr. Fairlie sent to say he was well enough to see me. He
had not altered, at any rate, since I first knew him. His talk was to the
same purpose as usual—all about himself and his ailments, his
wonderful coins, and his matchless Rembrandt etchings. The moment I tried
to speak of the business that had brought me to his house, he shut his
eyes and said I “upset” him. I persisted in upsetting him by returning
again and again to the subject. All I could ascertain was that he looked
on his niece’s marriage as a settled thing, that her father had sanctioned
it, that he sanctioned it himself, that it was a desirable marriage, and
that he should be personally rejoiced when the worry of it was over. As to
the settlements, if I would consult his niece, and afterwards dive as
deeply as I pleased into my own knowledge of the family affairs, and get
everything ready, and limit his share in the business, as guardian, to
saying Yes, at the right moment—why, of course he would meet my
views, and everybody else’s views, with infinite pleasure. In the
meantime, there I saw him, a helpless sufferer, confined to his room. Did
I think he looked as if he wanted teasing? No. Then why tease him?

I might, perhaps, have been a little astonished at this extraordinary
absence of all self-assertion on Mr. Fairlie’s part, in the character of
guardian, if my knowledge of the family affairs had not been sufficient to
remind me that he was a single man, and that he had nothing more than a
life-interest in the Limmeridge property. As matters stood, therefore, I
was neither surprised nor disappointed at the result of the interview. Mr.
Fairlie had simply justified my expectations—and there was an end of
it.

Sunday was a dull day, out of doors and in. A letter arrived for me from
Sir Percival Glyde’s solicitor, acknowledging the receipt of my copy of
the anonymous letter and my accompanying statement of the case. Miss
Fairlie joined us in the afternoon, looking pale and depressed, and
altogether unlike herself. I had some talk with her, and ventured on a
delicate allusion to Sir Percival. She listened and said nothing. All
other subjects she pursued willingly, but this subject she allowed to
drop. I began to doubt whether she might not be repenting of her
engagement—just as young ladies often do, when repentance comes too
late.

On Monday Sir Percival Glyde arrived.

I found him to be a most prepossessing man, so far as manners and
appearance were concerned. He looked rather older than I had expected, his
head being bald over the forehead, and his face somewhat marked and worn,
but his movements were as active and his spirits as high as a young man’s.
His meeting with Miss Halcombe was delightfully hearty and unaffected, and
his reception of me, upon my being presented to him, was so easy and
pleasant that we got on together like old friends. Miss Fairlie was not
with us when he arrived, but she entered the room about ten minutes
afterwards. Sir Percival rose and paid his compliments with perfect grace.
His evident concern on seeing the change for the worse in the young lady’s
looks was expressed with a mixture of tenderness and respect, with an
unassuming delicacy of tone, voice, and manner, which did equal credit to
his good breeding and his good sense. I was rather surprised, under these
circumstances, to see that Miss Fairlie continued to be constrained and
uneasy in his presence, and that she took the first opportunity of leaving
the room again. Sir Percival neither noticed the restraint in her
reception of him, nor her sudden withdrawal from our society. He had not
obtruded his attentions on her while she was present, and he did not
embarrass Miss Halcombe by any allusion to her departure when she was
gone. His tact and taste were never at fault on this or on any other
occasion while I was in his company at Limmeridge House.

As soon as Miss Fairlie had left the room he spared us all embarrassment
on the subject of the anonymous letter, by adverting to it of his own
accord. He had stopped in London on his way from Hampshire, had seen his
solicitor, had read the documents forwarded by me, and had travelled on to
Cumberland, anxious to satisfy our minds by the speediest and the fullest
explanation that words could convey. On hearing him express himself to
this effect, I offered him the original letter, which I had kept for his
inspection. He thanked me, and declined to look at it, saying that he had
seen the copy, and that he was quite willing to leave the original in our
hands.

The statement itself, on which he immediately entered, was as simple and
satisfactory as I had all along anticipated it would be.

Mrs. Catherick, he informed us, had in past years laid him under some
obligations for faithful services rendered to his family connections and
to himself. She had been doubly unfortunate in being married to a husband
who had deserted her, and in having an only child whose mental faculties
had been in a disturbed condition from a very early age. Although her
marriage had removed her to a part of Hampshire far distant from the
neighbourhood in which Sir Percival’s property was situated, he had taken
care not to lose sight of her—his friendly feeling towards the poor
woman, in consideration of her past services, having been greatly
strengthened by his admiration of the patience and courage with which she
supported her calamities. In course of time the symptoms of mental
affliction in her unhappy daughter increased to such a serious extent, as
to make it a matter of necessity to place her under proper medical care.
Mrs. Catherick herself recognised this necessity, but she also felt the
prejudice common to persons occupying her respectable station, against
allowing her child to be admitted, as a pauper, into a public Asylum. Sir
Percival had respected this prejudice, as he respected honest independence
of feeling in any rank of life, and had resolved to mark his grateful
sense of Mrs. Catherick’s early attachment to the interests of himself and
his family, by defraying the expense of her daughter’s maintenance in a
trustworthy private Asylum. To her mother’s regret, and to his own regret,
the unfortunate creature had discovered the share which circumstances had
induced him to take in placing her under restraint, and had conceived the
most intense hatred and distrust of him in consequence. To that hatred and
distrust—which had expressed itself in various ways in the Asylum—the
anonymous letter, written after her escape, was plainly attributable. If
Miss Halcombe’s or Mr. Gilmore’s recollection of the document did not
confirm that view, or if they wished for any additional particulars about
the Asylum (the address of which he mentioned, as well as the names and
addresses of the two doctors on whose certificates the patient was
admitted), he was ready to answer any question and to clear up any
uncertainty. He had done his duty to the unhappy young woman, by
instructing his solicitor to spare no expense in tracing her, and in
restoring her once more to medical care, and he was now only anxious to do
his duty towards Miss Fairlie and towards her family, in the same plain,
straightforward way.

I was the first to speak in answer to this appeal. My own course was plain
to me. It is the great beauty of the Law that it can dispute any human
statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to any form. If I had
felt professionally called upon to set up a case against Sir Percival
Glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, I could have done so beyond
all doubt. But my duty did not lie in this direction—my function was
of the purely judicial kind. I was to weigh the explanation we had just
heard, to allow all due force to the high reputation of the gentleman who
offered it, and to decide honestly whether the probabilities, on Sir
Percival’s own showing, were plainly with him, or plainly against him. My
own conviction was that they were plainly with him, and I accordingly
declared that his explanation was, to my mind, unquestionably a
satisfactory one.

Miss Halcombe, after looking at me very earnestly, said a few words, on
her side, to the same effect—with a certain hesitation of manner,
however, which the circumstances did not seem to me to warrant. I am
unable to say, positively, whether Sir Percival noticed this or not. My
opinion is that he did, seeing that he pointedly resumed the subject,
although he might now, with all propriety, have allowed it to drop.

“If my plain statement of facts had only been addressed to Mr. Gilmore,”
he said, “I should consider any further reference to this unhappy matter
as unnecessary. I may fairly expect Mr. Gilmore, as a gentleman, to
believe me on my word, and when he has done me that justice, all
discussion of the subject between us has come to an end. But my position
with a lady is not the same. I owe to her—what I would concede to no
man alive—a proof of the truth of my assertion. You cannot
ask for that proof, Miss Halcombe, and it is therefore my duty to you, and
still more to Miss Fairlie, to offer it. May I beg that you will write at
once to the mother of this unfortunate woman—to Mrs. Catherick—to
ask for her testimony in support of the explanation which I have just
offered to you.”

I saw Miss Halcombe change colour, and look a little uneasy. Sir
Percival’s suggestion, politely as it was expressed, appeared to her, as
it appeared to me, to point very delicately at the hesitation which her
manner had betrayed a moment or two since.

“I hope, Sir Percival, you don’t do me the injustice to suppose that I
distrust you,” she said quickly.

“Certainly not, Miss Halcombe. I make my proposal purely as an act of
attention to you. Will you excuse my obstinacy if I still venture
to press it?”

He walked to the writing-table as he spoke, drew a chair to it, and opened
the paper case.

“Let me beg you to write the note,” he said, “as a favour to me. It
need not occupy you more than a few minutes. You have only to ask Mrs.
Catherick two questions. First, if her daughter was placed in the Asylum
with her knowledge and approval. Secondly, if the share I took in the
matter was such as to merit the expression of her gratitude towards
myself? Mr. Gilmore’s mind is at ease on this unpleasant subject, and your
mind is at ease—pray set my mind at ease also by writing the note.”

“You oblige me to grant your request, Sir Percival, when I would much
rather refuse it.”

With those words Miss Halcombe rose from her place and went to the
writing-table. Sir Percival thanked her, handed her a pen, and then walked
away towards the fireplace. Miss Fairlie’s little Italian greyhound was
lying on the rug. He held out his hand, and called to the dog
good-humouredly.

“Come, Nina,” he said, “we remember each other, don’t we?”

The little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as pet-dogs usually are,
looked up at him sharply, shrank away from his outstretched hand, whined,
shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. It was scarcely possible that he
could have been put out by such a trifle as a dog’s reception of him, but
I observed, nevertheless, that he walked away towards the window very
suddenly. Perhaps his temper is irritable at times. If so, I can
sympathise with him. My temper is irritable at times too.

Miss Halcombe was not long in writing the note. When it was done she rose
from the writing-table, and handed the open sheet of paper to Sir
Percival. He bowed, took it from her, folded it up immediately without
looking at the contents, sealed it, wrote the address, and handed it back
to her in silence. I never saw anything more gracefully and more
becomingly done in my life.

“You insist on my posting this letter, Sir Percival?” said Miss Halcombe.

“I beg you will post it,” he answered. “And now that it is written and
sealed up, allow me to ask one or two last questions about the unhappy
woman to whom it refers. I have read the communication which Mr. Gilmore
kindly addressed to my solicitor, describing the circumstances under which
the writer of the anonymous letter was identified. But there are certain
points to which that statement does not refer. Did Anne Catherick see Miss
Fairlie?”

“Certainly not,” replied Miss Halcombe.

“Did she see you?”

“No.”

“She saw nobody from the house then, except a certain Mr. Hartright, who
accidentally met with her in the churchyard here?”

“Nobody else.”

“Mr. Hartright was employed at Limmeridge as a drawing-master, I believe?
Is he a member of one of the Water-Colour Societies?”

“I believe he is,” answered Miss Halcombe.

He paused for a moment, as if he was thinking over the last answer, and
then added—

“Did you find out where Anne Catherick was living, when she was in this
neighbourhood?”

“Yes. At a farm on the moor, called Todd’s Corner.”

“It is a duty we all owe to the poor creature herself to trace her,”
continued Sir Percival. “She may have said something at Todd’s Corner
which may help us to find her. I will go there and make inquiries on the
chance. In the meantime, as I cannot prevail on myself to discuss this
painful subject with Miss Fairlie, may I beg, Miss Halcombe, that you will
kindly undertake to give her the necessary explanation, deferring it of
course until you have received the reply to that note.”

Miss Halcombe promised to comply with his request. He thanked her, nodded
pleasantly, and left us, to go and establish himself in his own room. As
he opened the door the cross-grained greyhound poked out her sharp muzzle
from under the sofa, and barked and snapped at him.

“A good morning’s work, Miss Halcombe,” I said, as soon as we were alone.
“Here is an anxious day well ended already.”

“Yes,” she answered; “no doubt. I am very glad your mind is satisfied.”

“My mind! Surely, with that note in your hand, your mind is at ease
too?”

“Oh yes—how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be,” she
went on, speaking more to herself than to me; “but I almost wish Walter
Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation,
and to hear the proposal to me to write this note.”

I was a little surprised—perhaps a little piqued also—by these
last words.

“Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the
affair of the letter,” I said; “and I readily admit that he conducted
himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I
am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could
have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival’s statement on
your mind or mine.”

“It was only a fancy,” she said absently. “There is no need to discuss it,
Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can
desire.”

I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this
marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not
have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very
last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking
from the expression of an opinion of her own.

“If any doubts still trouble you,” I said, “why not mention them to me at
once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival
Glyde?”

“None whatever.”

“Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?”

“How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it?
Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the
testimony of the woman’s mother?”

“None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be
satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival’s
can possibly expect from him.”

“Then we will post the note,” she said, rising to leave the room, “and
dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives.
Don’t attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for
it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately—and
anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us.”

She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke
those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature—a woman
of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from
her earliest years—I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more
than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an
importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which
I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see
no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little
uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have
chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of
mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it
off.

II

We all met again at dinner-time.

Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised
him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had
impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace
of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in
his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his
loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all
attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he
never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the
slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident,
and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances,
which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to
her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie
appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She
was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to
her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good
looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all
humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all
offered in vain.

On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one
of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd’s Corner. His inquiries, as I
afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview
with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out
together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as
usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie.

The Wednesday’s post brought with it an event—the reply from Mrs.
Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and
which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows—

“MADAM,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring
whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with
my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by
Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude
towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative
to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant,

“JANE ANNE CATHERICK.”

Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for
a woman to write—in substance as plain a confirmation as could be
desired of Sir Percival Glyde’s statement. This was my opinion, and with
certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe’s opinion also. Sir Percival,
when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the
sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few
words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote
briefly and plainly, just as she spoke.

The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received,
was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival’s explanation. Miss
Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her
sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair
in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute
before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves.

“I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?” she said, turning
and twisting Mrs. Catherick’s letter in her hand.

“If we are friends of Sir Percival’s, who know him and trust him, we have
done all, and more than all, that is necessary,” I answered, a little
annoyed by this return of her hesitation. “But if we are enemies who
suspect him——”

“That alternative is not even to be thought of,” she interposed. “We are
Sir Percival’s friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our
regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival’s admirers as well. You know
that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with
me.”

“Yes. I saw you riding away together.”

“We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular
manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that
subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his
engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of
spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute
to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present
visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he
would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations
either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she
would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under
which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been
from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due
reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should
withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband—and
if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips—he would
sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the
engagement.”

“No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few
men in his situation would have said as much.”

She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a
singular expression of perplexity and distress.

“I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing,” she broke out abruptly. “But I
cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this
marriage.”

“That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested
you to take,” I replied in astonishment. “He has begged you not to force
her inclinations.”

“And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message.”

“How can that possibly be?”

“Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to
reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of
the strongest feelings in her nature—to her love for her father’s
memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke
a promise in her life—you know that she entered on this engagement
at the beginning of her father’s fatal illness, and that he spoke
hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his
deathbed.”

I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case.

“Surely,” I said, “you don’t mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to
you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?”

Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke.

“Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I
suspected of such baseness as that?” she asked angrily.

I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see
so much malice and so little indignation in my profession.

“In that case,” I said, “excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase,
that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may
be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully
consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she
claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her
against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your
eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What
excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she
had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?”

“In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she
still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange
conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the
imputation as well as we can.”

With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has
a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a
sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something
to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly
suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them
which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought
this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival.

My doubts—or to speak more correctly, my convictions—were
confirmed by Miss Halcombe’s language and manner when I saw her again
later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me
the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared,
had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her
in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say
that the object of Sir Percival’s visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on
her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further
reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would
consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his
final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with
such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her
influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie’s
earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had
ended.

The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient
enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the
writer of these lines. That morning’s post had brought a letter from my
partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon
train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity
of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year.
In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her
engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew
her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and
we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to
be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this
difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the
desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request
immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must
absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was,
therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room
the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the
evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked,
as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it.

The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss
Fairlie’s sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came
forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to
lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all
the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from
which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained
pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping
reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my
expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly
into my hand the moment I sat down.

“You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear,” I said,
“and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant
throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?”

I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which
she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open
had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the
drawing which had suggested my question—an idle question enough—but
how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips?

“No,” she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, “it is
not my doing.”

Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of
always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was
talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed
absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The
expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the
drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in
the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in
coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the
purpose with as little delay as possible.

“One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you
good-bye,” I began. “I must get back to London to-day: and, before I
leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs.”

“I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore,” she said, looking at me
kindly. “It is like the happy old times to have you here.”

“I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once
more,” I continued; “but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I
must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am
your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure,
without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde.”

She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot
and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes
looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on
her face which looked almost like an expression of pain.

“Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?” she asked
in low tones.

“It is necessary to refer to it,” I answered, “but not to dwell on it. Let
us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first
case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought
not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you.
This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us,
therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as
few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make
it, if you please, in the future.”

I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her
exactly what her prospects were—in the first place, on her coming of
age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle—marking
the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest
only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened
attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her
hands still nervously clasped together in her lap.

“And now,” I said in conclusion, “tell me if you can think of any
condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make
for you—subject, of course, to your guardian’s approval, as you are
not yet of age.”

She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very
earnestly.

“If it does happen,” she began faintly, “if I am——”

“If you are married,” I added, helping her out.

“Don’t let him part me from Marian,” she cried, with a sudden outbreak of
energy. “Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with
me!”

Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this
essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long
explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she
spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious—they distressed
me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past
which boded ill for the future.

“Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by
private arrangement,” I said. “You hardly understood my question, I think.
It referred to your own property—to the disposal of your money.
Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like
the money to go to?”

“Marian has been mother and sister both to me,” said the good,
affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. “May I
leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?”

“Certainly, my love,” I answered. “But remember what a large sum it is.
Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?”

She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to
the little album.

“Not all of it,” she said. “There is some one else besides Marian——”

She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that
rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her
memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite
tune.

“You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?” I
suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed.

The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the
nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the
book.

“There is some one else,” she said, not noticing my last words, though she
had evidently heard them; “there is some one else who might like a little
keepsake if—if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should
die first——”

She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as
suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a
little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant—then
turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as
she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her
hands.

Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever
laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and
her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this!

In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and
the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my
chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and
drew her hands from her face gently. “Don’t cry, my love,” I said, and
dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if
she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago.

It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head
on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears.

“I am very sorry for forgetting myself,” she said artlessly. “I have not
been well—I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry
without reason when I am alone. I am better now—I can answer you as
I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed.”

“No, no, my dear,” I replied, “we will consider the subject as done with
for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best
possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another
opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something
else.”

I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes’ time she
was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave.

“Come here again,” she said earnestly. “I will try to be worthier of your
kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again.”

Still clinging to the past—that past which I represented to her, in
my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her
looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the
end of mine.

“If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better,” I said; “better and
happier. God bless you, my dear!”

She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers
have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her.

The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour—she
had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her
evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she
had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew
how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had
fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I
left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his
word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to
have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can
make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say—so it
was.

The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to
say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must
excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in
pencil on a slip of paper: “Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry
of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself.
Good-bye.”

Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone.

“Have you said all you wanted to Laura?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “She is very weak and nervous—I am glad she has
you to take care of her.”

Miss Halcombe’s sharp eyes studied my face attentively.

“You are altering your opinion about Laura,” she said. “You are readier to
make allowances for her than you were yesterday.”

No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with
a woman. I only answered—

“Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you.”

She still looked hard in my face. “I wish it was all over, and well over,
Mr. Gilmore—and so do you.” With those words she left me.

Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door.

“If you are ever in my neighbourhood,” he said, “pray don’t forget that I
am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted
old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of
mine.”

A really irresistible man—courteous, considerate, delightfully free
from pride—a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the
station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the
interests of Sir Percival Glyde—anything in the world, except
drawing the marriage settlement of his wife.

III

A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any
communication from Miss Halcombe.

On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other
letters on my table.

It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and
that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before
the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed
during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie’s twenty-first
birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement,
become Sir Percival’s wife about three months before she was of age.

I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I
was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused
by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe’s letter, mingled itself
with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my
serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed
marriage—in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left
Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding
sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change
and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of
some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit
to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a
word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie
to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had
last seen her.

At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully
explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on
hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of
Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe
them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the
plain duty for me to perform—before I, in my turn, lay down my pen
and withdraw from the story—is to relate the one remaining event
connected with Miss Fairlie’s proposed marriage in which I was concerned,
namely, the drawing of the settlement.

It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first
entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride’s pecuniary
affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to
keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter
is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss
Fairlie’s inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie’s story, and
that Mr. Gilmore’s experience, in this particular, must be their
experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet
to come.

Miss Fairlie’s expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her
possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and
her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of
age.

Let us take the land first.

In the time of Miss Fairlie’s paternal grandfather (whom we will call Mr.
Fairlie, the elder) the entailed succession to the Limmeridge estate stood
thus—

Mr. Fairlie, the elder, died and left three sons, Philip, Frederick, and
Arthur. As eldest son, Philip succeeded to the estate. If he died without
leaving a son, the property went to the second brother, Frederick; and if
Frederick died also without leaving a son, the property went to the third
brother, Arthur.

As events turned out, Mr. Philip Fairlie died leaving an only daughter,
the Laura of this story, and the estate, in consequence, went, in course
of law, to the second brother, Frederick, a single man. The third brother,
Arthur, had died many years before the decease of Philip, leaving a son
and a daughter. The son, at the age of eighteen, was drowned at Oxford.
His death left Laura, the daughter of Mr. Philip Fairlie, presumptive
heiress to the estate, with every chance of succeeding to it, in the
ordinary course of nature, on her uncle Frederick’s death, if the said
Frederick died without leaving male issue.

Except in the event, then, of Mr. Frederick Fairlie’s marrying and leaving
an heir (the two very last things in the world that he was likely to do),
his niece, Laura, would have the property on his death, possessing, it
must be remembered, nothing more than a life-interest in it. If she died
single, or died childless, the estate would revert to her cousin,
Magdalen, the daughter of Mr. Arthur Fairlie. If she married, with a
proper settlement—or, in other words, with the settlement I meant to
make for her—the income from the estate (a good three thousand a
year) would, during her lifetime, be at her own disposal. If she died
before her husband, he would naturally expect to be left in the enjoyment
of the income, for his lifetime. If she had a son, that son would
be the heir, to the exclusion of her cousin Magdalen. Thus, Sir Percival’s
prospects in marrying Miss Fairlie (so far as his wife’s expectations from
real property were concerned) promised him these two advantages, on Mr.
Frederick Fairlie’s death: First, the use of three thousand a year (by his
wife’s permission, while she lived, and in his own right, on her death, if
he survived her); and, secondly, the inheritance of Limmeridge for his
son, if he had one.

So much for the landed property, and for the disposal of the income from
it, on the occasion of Miss Fairlie’s marriage. Thus far, no difficulty or
difference of opinion on the lady’s settlement was at all likely to arise
between Sir Percival’s lawyer and myself.

The personal estate, or, in other words, the money to which Miss Fairlie
would become entitled on reaching the age of twenty-one years, is the next
point to consider.

This part of her inheritance was, in itself, a comfortable little fortune.
It was derived under her father’s will, and it amounted to the sum of
twenty thousand pounds. Besides this, she had a life-interest in ten
thousand pounds more, which latter amount was to go, on her decease, to
her aunt Eleanor, her father’s only sister. It will greatly assist in
setting the family affairs before the reader in the clearest possible
light, if I stop here for a moment, to explain why the aunt had been kept
waiting for her legacy until the death of the niece.

Mr. Philip Fairlie had lived on excellent terms with his sister Eleanor,
as long as she remained a single woman. But when her marriage took place,
somewhat late in life, and when that marriage united her to an Italian
gentleman named Fosco, or, rather, to an Italian nobleman—seeing
that he rejoiced in the title of Count—Mr. Fairlie disapproved of
her conduct so strongly that he ceased to hold any communication with her,
and even went the length of striking her name out of his will. The other
members of the family all thought this serious manifestation of resentment
at his sister’s marriage more or less unreasonable. Count Fosco, though
not a rich man, was not a penniless adventurer either. He had a small but
sufficient income of his own. He had lived many years in England, and he
held an excellent position in society. These recommendations, however,
availed nothing with Mr. Fairlie. In many of his opinions he was an
Englishman of the old school, and he hated a foreigner simply and solely
because he was a foreigner. The utmost that he could be prevailed on to
do, in after years—mainly at Miss Fairlie’s intercession—was
to restore his sister’s name to its former place in his will, but to keep
her waiting for her legacy by giving the income of the money to his
daughter for life, and the money itself, if her aunt died before her, to
her cousin Magdalen. Considering the relative ages of the two ladies, the
aunt’s chance, in the ordinary course of nature, of receiving the ten
thousand pounds, was thus rendered doubtful in the extreme; and Madame
Fosco resented her brother’s treatment of her as unjustly as usual in such
cases, by refusing to see her niece, and declining to believe that Miss
Fairlie’s intercession had ever been exerted to restore her name to Mr.
Fairlie’s will.

Such was the history of the ten thousand pounds. Here again no difficulty
could arise with Sir Percival’s legal adviser. The income would be at the
wife’s disposal, and the principal would go to her aunt or her cousin on
her death.

All preliminary explanations being now cleared out of the way, I come at
last to the real knot of the case—to the twenty thousand pounds.

This sum was absolutely Miss Fairlie’s own on her completing her
twenty-first year, and the whole future disposition of it depended, in the
first instance, on the conditions I could obtain for her in her
marriage-settlement. The other clauses contained in that document were of
a formal kind, and need not be recited here. But the clause relating to
the money is too important to be passed over. A few lines will be
sufficient to give the necessary abstract of it.

My stipulation in regard to the twenty thousand pounds was simply this:
The whole amount was to be settled so as to give the income to the lady
for her life—afterwards to Sir Percival for his life—and the
principal to the children of the marriage. In default of issue, the
principal was to be disposed of as the lady might by her will direct, for
which purpose I reserved to her the right of making a will. The effect of
these conditions may be thus summed up. If Lady Glyde died without leaving
children, her half-sister Miss Halcombe, and any other relatives or
friends whom she might be anxious to benefit, would, on her husband’s
death, divide among them such shares of her money as she desired them to
have. If, on the other hand, she died leaving children, then their
interest, naturally and necessarily, superseded all other interests
whatsoever. This was the clause—and no one who reads it can fail, I
think, to agree with me that it meted out equal justice to all parties.

We shall see how my proposals were met on the husband’s side.

At the time when Miss Halcombe’s letter reached me I was even more busily
occupied than usual. But I contrived to make leisure for the settlement. I
had drawn it, and had sent it for approval to Sir Percival’s solicitor, in
less than a week from the time when Miss Halcombe had informed me of the
proposed marriage.

After a lapse of two days the document was returned to me, with notes and
remarks of the baronet’s lawyer. His objections, in general, proved to be
of the most trifling and technical kind, until he came to the clause
relating to the twenty thousand pounds. Against this there were double
lines drawn in red ink, and the following note was appended to them—

“Not admissible. The principal to go to Sir Percival Glyde, in the
event of his surviving Lady Glyde, and there being no issue.”

That is to say, not one farthing of the twenty thousand pounds was to go
to Miss Halcombe, or to any other relative or friend of Lady Glyde’s. The
whole sum, if she left no children, was to slip into the pockets of her
husband.

The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was as short and sharp as I
could make it. “My dear sir. Miss Fairlie’s settlement. I maintain the
clause to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly.” The
rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour. “My dear sir. Miss Fairlie’s
settlement. I maintain the red ink to which you object, exactly as it
stands. Yours truly.” In the detestable slang of the day, we were now both
“at a deadlock,” and nothing was left for it but to refer to our clients
on either side.

As matters stood, my client—Miss Fairlie not having yet completed
her twenty-first year—Mr. Frederick Fairlie, was her guardian. I
wrote by that day’s post, and put the case before him exactly as it stood,
not only urging every argument I could think of to induce him to maintain
the clause as I had drawn it, but stating to him plainly the mercenary
motive which was at the bottom of the opposition to my settlement of the
twenty thousand pounds. The knowledge of Sir Percival’s affairs which I
had necessarily gained when the provisions of the deed on his side
were submitted in due course to my examination, had but too plainly
informed me that the debts on his estate were enormous, and that his
income, though nominally a large one, was virtually, for a man in his
position, next to nothing. The want of ready money was the practical
necessity of Sir Percival’s existence, and his lawyer’s note on the clause
in the settlement was nothing but the frankly selfish expression of it.

Mr. Fairlie’s answer reached me by return of post, and proved to be
wandering and irrelevant in the extreme. Turned into plain English, it
practically expressed itself to this effect: “Would dear Gilmore be so
very obliging as not to worry his friend and client about such a trifle as
a remote contingency? Was it likely that a young woman of twenty-one would
die before a man of forty five, and die without children? On the other
hand, in such a miserable world as this, was it possible to over-estimate
the value of peace and quietness? If those two heavenly blessings were
offered in exchange for such an earthly trifle as a remote chance of
twenty thousand pounds, was it not a fair bargain? Surely, yes. Then why
not make it?”

I threw the letter away in disgust. Just as it had fluttered to the
ground, there was a knock at my door, and Sir Percival’s solicitor, Mr.
Merriman, was shown in. There are many varieties of sharp practitioners in
this world, but I think the hardest of all to deal with are the men who
overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good-humour. A fat, well
fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to a bargain the
most hopeless to deal with. Mr. Merriman was one of this class.

“And how is good Mr. Gilmore?” he began, all in a glow with the warmth of
his own amiability. “Glad to see you, sir, in such excellent health. I was
passing your door, and I thought I would look in in case you might have
something to say to me. Do—now pray do let us settle this little
difference of ours by word of mouth, if we can! Have you heard from your
client yet?”

“Yes. Have you heard from yours?”

“My dear, good sir! I wish I had heard from him to any purpose—I
wish, with all my heart, the responsibility was off my shoulders; but he
is obstinate—or let me rather say, resolute—and he won’t take
it off. ‘Merriman, I leave details to you. Do what you think right for my
interests, and consider me as having personally withdrawn from the
business until it is all over.’ Those were Sir Percival’s words a
fortnight ago, and all I can get him to do now is to repeat them. I am not
a hard man, Mr. Gilmore, as you know. Personally and privately, I do
assure you, I should like to sponge out that note of mine at this very
moment. But if Sir Percival won’t go into the matter, if Sir Percival will
blindly leave all his interests in my sole care, what course can I
possibly take except the course of asserting them? My hands are bound—don’t
you see, my dear sir?—my hands are bound.”

“You maintain your note on the clause, then, to the letter?” I said.

“Yes—deuce take it! I have no other alternative.” He walked to the
fireplace and warmed himself, humming the fag end of a tune in a rich
convivial bass voice. “What does your side say?” he went on; “now pray
tell me—what does your side say?”

I was ashamed to tell him. I attempted to gain time—nay, I did
worse. My legal instincts got the better of me, and I even tried to
bargain.

“Twenty thousand pounds is rather a large sum to be given up by the lady’s
friends at two days’ notice,” I said.

“Very true,” replied Mr. Merriman, looking down thoughtfully at his boots.
“Properly put, sir—most properly put!”

“A compromise, recognising the interests of the lady’s family as well as
the interests of the husband, might not perhaps have frightened my client
quite so much,” I went on. “Come, come! this contingency resolves itself
into a matter of bargaining after all. What is the least you will take?”

“The least we will take,” said Mr. Merriman, “is nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-pounds-nineteen-shillings-and-elevenpence-three-farthings. Ha! ha! ha! Excuse me, Mr. Gilmore. I
must have my little joke.”

“Little enough,” I remarked. “The joke is just worth the odd farthing it
was made for.”

Mr. Merriman was delighted. He laughed over my retort till the room rang
again. I was not half so good-humoured on my side; I came back to
business, and closed the interview.

“This is Friday,” I said. “Give us till Tuesday next for our final
answer.”

“By all means,” replied Mr. Merriman. “Longer, my dear sir, if you like.”
He took up his hat to go, and then addressed me again. “By the way,” he
said, “your clients in Cumberland have not heard anything more of the
woman who wrote the anonymous letter, have they?”

“Nothing more,” I answered. “Have you found no trace of her?”

“Not yet,” said my legal friend. “But we don’t despair. Sir Percival has
his suspicions that Somebody is keeping her in hiding, and we are having
that Somebody watched.”

“You mean the old woman who was with her in Cumberland,” I said.

“Quite another party, sir,” answered Mr. Merriman. “We don’t happen to
have laid hands on the old woman yet. Our Somebody is a man. We have got
him close under our eye here in London, and we strongly suspect he had
something to do with helping her in the first instance to escape from the
Asylum. Sir Percival wanted to question him at once, but I said, ‘No.
Questioning him will only put him on his guard—watch him, and wait.’
We shall see what happens. A dangerous woman to be at large, Mr. Gilmore;
nobody knows what she may do next. I wish you good-morning, sir. On
Tuesday next I shall hope for the pleasure of hearing from you.” He smiled
amiably and went out.

My mind had been rather absent during the latter part of the conversation
with my legal friend. I was so anxious about the matter of the settlement
that I had little attention to give to any other subject, and the moment I
was left alone again I began to think over what my next proceeding ought
to be.

In the case of any other client I should have acted on my instructions,
however personally distasteful to me, and have given up the point about
the twenty thousand pounds on the spot. But I could not act with this
business-like indifference towards Miss Fairlie. I had an honest feeling
of affection and admiration for her—I remembered gratefully that her
father had been the kindest patron and friend to me that ever man had—I
had felt towards her while I was drawing the settlement as I might have
felt, if I had not been an old bachelor, towards a daughter of my own, and
I was determined to spare no personal sacrifice in her service and where
her interests were concerned. Writing a second time to Mr. Fairlie was not
to be thought of—it would only be giving him a second opportunity of
slipping through my fingers. Seeing him and personally remonstrating with
him might possibly be of more use. The next day was Saturday. I determined
to take a return ticket and jolt my old bones down to Cumberland, on the
chance of persuading him to adopt the just, the independent, and the
honourable course. It was a poor chance enough, no doubt, but when I had
tried it my conscience would be at ease. I should then have done all that
a man in my position could do to serve the interests of my old friend’s
only child.

The weather on Saturday was beautiful, a west wind and a bright sun.
Having felt latterly a return of that fulness and oppression of the head,
against which my doctor warned me so seriously more than two years since,
I resolved to take the opportunity of getting a little extra exercise by
sending my bag on before me and walking to the terminus in Euston Square.
As I came out into Holborn a gentleman walking by rapidly stopped and
spoke to me. It was Mr. Walter Hartright.

If he had not been the first to greet me I should certainly have passed
him. He was so changed that I hardly knew him again. His face looked pale
and haggard—his manner was hurried and uncertain—and his
dress, which I remembered as neat and gentlemanlike when I saw him at
Limmeridge, was so slovenly now that I should really have been ashamed of
the appearance of it on one of my own clerks.

“Have you been long back from Cumberland?” he asked. “I heard from Miss
Halcombe lately. I am aware that Sir Percival Glyde’s explanation has been
considered satisfactory. Will the marriage take place soon? Do you happen
to know, Mr. Gilmore?”

He spoke so fast, and crowded his questions together so strangely and
confusedly, that I could hardly follow him. However accidentally intimate
he might have been with the family at Limmeridge, I could not see that he
had any right to expect information on their private affairs, and I
determined to drop him, as easily as might be, on the subject of Miss
Fairlie’s marriage.

“Time will show, Mr. Hartright,” I said—“time will show. I dare say
if we look out for the marriage in the papers we shall not be far wrong.
Excuse my noticing it, but I am sorry to see you not looking so well as
you were when we last met.”

A momentary nervous contraction quivered about his lips and eyes, and made
me half reproach myself for having answered him in such a significantly
guarded manner.

“I had no right to ask about her marriage,” he said bitterly. “I must wait
to see it in the newspapers like other people. Yes,”—he went on
before I could make any apologies—“I have not been well lately. I am
going to another country to try a change of scene and occupation. Miss
Halcombe has kindly assisted me with her influence, and my testimonials
have been found satisfactory. It is a long distance off, but I don’t care
where I go, what the climate is, or how long I am away.” He looked about
him while he said this at the throng of strangers passing us by on either
side, in a strange, suspicious manner, as if he thought that some of them
might be watching us.

“I wish you well through it, and safe back again,” I said, and then added,
so as not to keep him altogether at arm’s length on the subject of the
Fairlies, “I am going down to Limmeridge to-day on business. Miss Halcombe
and Miss Fairlie are away just now on a visit to some friends in
Yorkshire.”

His eyes brightened, and he seemed about to say something in answer, but
the same momentary nervous spasm crossed his face again. He took my hand,
pressed it hard, and disappeared among the crowd without saying another
word. Though he was little more than a stranger to me, I waited for a
moment, looking after him almost with a feeling of regret. I had gained in
my profession sufficient experience of young men to know what the outward
signs and tokens were of their beginning to go wrong, and when I resumed
my walk to the railway I am sorry to say I felt more than doubtful about
Mr. Hartright’s future.

IV

Leaving by an early train, I got to Limmeridge in time for dinner. The
house was oppressively empty and dull. I had expected that good Mrs. Vesey
would have been company for me in the absence of the young ladies, but she
was confined to her room by a cold. The servants were so surprised at
seeing me that they hurried and bustled absurdly, and made all sorts of
annoying mistakes. Even the butler, who was old enough to have known
better, brought me a bottle of port that was chilled. The reports of Mr.
Fairlie’s health were just as usual, and when I sent up a message to
announce my arrival, I was told that he would be delighted to see me the
next morning but that the sudden news of my appearance had prostrated him
with palpitations for the rest of the evening. The wind howled dismally
all night, and strange cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there,
and everywhere in the empty house. I slept as wretchedly as possible, and
got up in a mighty bad humour to breakfast by myself the next morning.

At ten o’clock I was conducted to Mr. Fairlie’s apartments. He was in his
usual room, his usual chair, and his usual aggravating state of mind and
body. When I went in, his valet was standing before him, holding up for
inspection a heavy volume of etchings, as long and as broad as my office
writing-desk. The miserable foreigner grinned in the most abject manner,
and looked ready to drop with fatigue, while his master composedly turned
over the etchings, and brought their hidden beauties to light with the
help of a magnifying glass.

“You very best of good old friends,” said Mr. Fairlie, leaning back lazily
before he could look at me, “are you quite well? How nice of you to
come here and see me in my solitude. Dear Gilmore!”

I had expected that the valet would be dismissed when I appeared, but
nothing of the sort happened. There he stood, in front of his master’s
chair, trembling under the weight of the etchings, and there Mr. Fairlie
sat, serenely twirling the magnifying glass between his white fingers and
thumbs.

“I have come to speak to you on a very important matter,” I said, “and you
will therefore excuse me, if I suggest that we had better be alone.”

The unfortunate valet looked at me gratefully. Mr. Fairlie faintly
repeated my last three words, “better be alone,” with every appearance of
the utmost possible astonishment.

I was in no humour for trifling, and I resolved to make him understand
what I meant.

“Oblige me by giving that man permission to withdraw,” I said, pointing to
the valet.

Mr. Fairlie arched his eyebrows and pursed up his lips in sarcastic
surprise.

“Man?” he repeated. “You provoking old Gilmore, what can you possibly mean
by calling him a man? He’s nothing of the sort. He might have been a man
half an hour ago, before I wanted my etchings, and he may be a man half an
hour hence, when I don’t want them any longer. At present he is simply a
portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio stand?”

“I do object. For the third time, Mr. Fairlie, I beg that we may be
alone.”

My tone and manner left him no alternative but to comply with my request.
He looked at the servant, and pointed peevishly to a chair at his side.

“Put down the etchings and go away,” he said. “Don’t upset me by losing my
place. Have you, or have you not, lost my place? Are you sure you have
not? And have you put my hand-bell quite within my reach? Yes? Then why
the devil don’t you go?”

The valet went out. Mr. Fairlie twisted himself round in his chair,
polished the magnifying glass with his delicate cambric handkerchief, and
indulged himself with a sidelong inspection of the open volume of
etchings. It was not easy to keep my temper under these circumstances, but
I did keep it.

“I have come here at great personal inconvenience,” I said, “to serve the
interests of your niece and your family, and I think I have established
some slight claim to be favoured with your attention in return.”

“Don’t bully me!” exclaimed Mr. Fairlie, falling back helplessly in the
chair, and closing his eyes. “Please don’t bully me. I’m not strong
enough.”

I was determined not to let him provoke me, for Laura Fairlie’s sake.

“My object,” I went on, “is to entreat you to reconsider your letter, and
not to force me to abandon the just rights of your niece, and of all who
belong to her. Let me state the case to you once more, and for the last
time.”

Mr. Fairlie shook his head and sighed piteously.

“This is heartless of you, Gilmore—very heartless,” he said. “Never
mind, go on.”

I put all the points to him carefully—I set the matter before him in
every conceivable light. He lay back in the chair the whole time I was
speaking with his eyes closed. When I had done he opened them indolently,
took his silver smelling-bottle from the table, and sniffed at it with an
air of gentle relish.

“Good Gilmore!” he said between the sniffs, “how very nice this is of you!
How you reconcile one to human nature!”

“Give me a plain answer to a plain question, Mr. Fairlie. I tell you
again, Sir Percival Glyde has no shadow of a claim to expect more than the
income of the money. The money itself if your niece has no children, ought
to be under her control, and to return to her family. If you stand firm,
Sir Percival must give way—he must give way, I tell you, or he
exposes himself to the base imputation of marrying Miss Fairlie entirely
from mercenary motives.”

Mr. Fairlie shook the silver smelling-bottle at me playfully.

“You dear old Gilmore, how you do hate rank and family, don’t you? How you
detest Glyde because he happens to be a baronet. What a Radical you are—oh,
dear me, what a Radical you are!”

A Radical!!! I could put up with a good deal of provocation, but, after
holding the soundest Conservative principles all my life, I could not
put up with being called a Radical. My blood boiled at it—I started
out of my chair—I was speechless with Indignation.

“Don’t shake the room!” cried Mr. Fairlie—“for Heaven’s sake don’t
shake the room! Worthiest of all possible Gilmores, I meant no offence. My
own views are so extremely liberal that I think I am a Radical myself.
Yes. We are a pair of Radicals. Please don’t be angry. I can’t quarrel—I
haven’t stamina enough. Shall we drop the subject? Yes. Come and look at
these sweet etchings. Do let me teach you to understand the heavenly
pearliness of these lines. Do now, there’s a good Gilmore!”

While he was maundering on in this way I was, fortunately for my own
self-respect, returning to my senses. When I spoke again I was composed
enough to treat his impertinence with the silent contempt that it
deserved.

“You are entirely wrong, sir,” I said, “in supposing that I speak from any
prejudice against Sir Percival Glyde. I may regret that he has so
unreservedly resigned himself in this matter to his lawyer’s direction as
to make any appeal to himself impossible, but I am not prejudiced against
him. What I have said would equally apply to any other man in his
situation, high or low. The principle I maintain is a recognised
principle. If you were to apply at the nearest town here, to the first
respectable solicitor you could find, he would tell you as a stranger what
I tell you as a friend. He would inform you that it is against all rule to
abandon the lady’s money entirely to the man she marries. He would
decline, on grounds of common legal caution, to give the husband, under
any circumstances whatever, an interest of twenty thousand pounds in his
wife’s death.”

“Would he really, Gilmore?” said Mr. Fairlie. “If he said anything half so
horrid, I do assure you I should tinkle my bell for Louis, and have him
sent out of the house immediately.”

“You shall not irritate me, Mr. Fairlie—for your niece’s sake and
for her father’s sake, you shall not irritate me. You shall take the whole
responsibility of this discreditable settlement on your own shoulders
before I leave the room.”

“Don’t!—now please don’t!” said Mr. Fairlie. “Think how precious
your time is, Gilmore, and don’t throw it away. I would dispute with you
if I could, but I can’t—I haven’t stamina enough. You want to upset
me, to upset yourself, to upset Glyde, and to upset Laura; and—oh,
dear me!—all for the sake of the very last thing in the world that
is likely to happen. No, dear friend—in the interests of peace and
quietness, positively No!”

“I am to understand, then, that you hold by the determination expressed in
your letter?”

“Yes, please. So glad we understand each other at last. Sit down again—do!”

I walked at once to the door, and Mr. Fairlie resignedly “tinkled” his
hand-bell. Before I left the room I turned round and addressed him for the
last time.

“Whatever happens in the future, sir,” I said, “remember that my plain
duty of warning you has been performed. As the faithful friend and servant
of your family, I tell you, at parting, that no daughter of mine should be
married to any man alive under such a settlement as you are forcing me to
make for Miss Fairlie.”

The door opened behind me, and the valet stood waiting on the threshold.

“Louis,” said Mr. Fairlie, “show Mr. Gilmore out, and then come back and
hold up my etchings for me again. Make them give you a good lunch
downstairs. Do, Gilmore, make my idle beasts of servants give you a good
lunch!”

I was too much disgusted to reply—I turned on my heel, and left him
in silence. There was an up train at two o’clock in the afternoon, and by
that train I returned to London.

On the Tuesday I sent in the altered settlement, which practically
disinherited the very persons whom Miss Fairlie’s own lips had informed me
she was most anxious to benefit. I had no choice. Another lawyer would
have drawn up the deed if I had refused to undertake it.

My task is done. My personal share in the events of the family story
extends no farther than the point which I have just reached. Other pens
than mine will describe the strange circumstances which are now shortly to
follow. Seriously and sorrowfully I close this brief record. Seriously and
sorrowfully I repeat here the parting words that I spoke at Limmeridge
House:—No daughter of mine should have been married to any man alive
under such a settlement as I was compelled to make for Laura Fairlie.

The End of Mr. Gilmore’s Narrative.

THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE

(in Extracts from her Diary)

LIMMERIDGE HOUSE, Nov. 8.[1]

[1] The passages omitted, here and elsewhere, in Miss Halcombe’s Diary are
only those which bear no reference to Miss Fairlie or to any of the
persons with whom she is associated in these pages.

This morning Mr. Gilmore left us.

His interview with Laura had evidently grieved and surprised him more than
he liked to confess. I felt afraid, from his look and manner when we
parted, that she might have inadvertently betrayed to him the real secret
of her depression and my anxiety. This doubt grew on me so, after he had
gone, that I declined riding out with Sir Percival, and went up to Laura’s
room instead.

I have been sadly distrustful of myself, in this difficult and lamentable
matter, ever since I found out my own ignorance of the strength of Laura’s
unhappy attachment. I ought to have known that the delicacy and
forbearance and sense of honour which drew me to poor Hartright, and made
me so sincerely admire and respect him, were just the qualities to appeal
most irresistibly to Laura’s natural sensitiveness and natural generosity
of nature. And yet, until she opened her heart to me of her own accord, I
had no suspicion that this new feeling had taken root so deeply. I once
thought time and care might remove it. I now fear that it will remain with
her and alter her for life. The discovery that I have committed such an
error in judgment as this makes me hesitate about everything else. I
hesitate about Sir Percival, in the face of the plainest proofs. I
hesitate even in speaking to Laura. On this very morning I doubted, with
my hand on the door, whether I should ask her the questions I had come to
put, or not.

When I went into her room I found her walking up and down in great
impatience. She looked flushed and excited, and she came forward at once,
and spoke to me before I could open my lips.

“I wanted you,” she said. “Come and sit down on the sofa with me. Marian!
I can bear this no longer—I must and will end it.”

There was too much colour in her cheeks, too much energy in her manner,
too much firmness in her voice. The little book of Hartright’s drawings—the
fatal book that she will dream over whenever she is alone—was in one
of her hands. I began by gently and firmly taking it from her, and putting
it out of sight on a side-table.

“Tell me quietly, my darling, what you wish to do,” I said. “Has Mr.
Gilmore been advising you?”

She shook her head. “No, not in what I am thinking of now. He was very
kind and good to me, Marian, and I am ashamed to say I distressed him by
crying. I am miserably helpless—I can’t control myself. For my own
sake, and for all our sakes, I must have courage enough to end it.”

“Do you mean courage enough to claim your release?” I asked.

“No,” she said simply. “Courage, dear, to tell the truth.”

She put her arms round my neck, and rested her head quietly on my bosom.
On the opposite wall hung the miniature portrait of her father. I bent
over her, and saw that she was looking at it while her head lay on my
breast.

“I can never claim my release from my engagement,” she went on. “Whatever
way it ends it must end wretchedly for me. All I can do, Marian, is
not to add the remembrance that I have broken my promise and forgotten my
father’s dying words, to make that wretchedness worse.”

“What is it you propose, then?” I asked.

“To tell Sir Percival Glyde the truth with my own lips,” she answered,
“and to let him release me, if he will, not because I ask him, but because
he knows all.”

“What do you mean, Laura, by ‘all’? Sir Percival will know enough (he has
told me so himself) if he knows that the engagement is opposed to your own
wishes.”

“Can I tell him that, when the engagement was made for me by my father,
with my own consent? I should have kept my promise, not happily, I am
afraid, but still contentedly—” she stopped, turned her face to me,
and laid her cheek close against mine—“I should have kept my
engagement, Marian, if another love had not grown up in my heart, which
was not there when I first promised to be Sir Percival’s wife.”

“Laura! you will never lower yourself by making a confession to him?”

“I shall lower myself, indeed, if I gain my release by hiding from him
what he has a right to know.”

“He has not the shadow of a right to know it!”

“Wrong, Marian, wrong! I ought to deceive no one—least of all the
man to whom my father gave me, and to whom I gave myself.” She put her
lips to mine, and kissed me. “My own love,” she said softly, “you are so
much too fond of me, and so much too proud of me, that you forget, in my
case, what you would remember in your own. Better that Sir Percival should
doubt my motives, and misjudge my conduct if he will, than that I should
be first false to him in thought, and then mean enough to serve my own
interests by hiding the falsehood.”

I held her away from me in astonishment. For the first time in our lives
we had changed places—the resolution was all on her side, the
hesitation all on mine. I looked into the pale, quiet, resigned young face—I
saw the pure, innocent heart, in the loving eyes that looked back at me—and
the poor worldly cautions and objections that rose to my lips dwindled and
died away in their own emptiness. I hung my head in silence. In her place
the despicably small pride which makes so many women deceitful would have
been my pride, and would have made me deceitful too.

“Don’t be angry with me, Marian,” she said, mistaking my silence.

I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of crying
if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought—they come
almost like men’s tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces, and
that frighten every one about me.

“I have thought of this, love, for many days,” she went on, twining and
twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers, which
poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to cure her of—“I
have thought of it very seriously, and I can be sure of my courage when my
own conscience tells me I am right. Let me speak to him to-morrow—in
your presence, Marian. I will say nothing that is wrong, nothing that you
or I need be ashamed of—but, oh, it will ease my heart so to end
this miserable concealment! Only let me know and feel that I have no
deception to answer for on my side, and then, when he has heard what I
have to say, let him act towards me as he will.”

She sighed, and put her head back in its old position on my bosom. Sad
misgivings about what the end would be weighed upon my mind, but still
distrusting myself, I told her that I would do as she wished. She thanked
me, and we passed gradually into talking of other things.

At dinner she joined us again, and was more easy and more herself with Sir
Percival than I have seen her yet. In the evening she went to the piano,
choosing new music of the dexterous, tuneless, florid kind. The lovely old
melodies of Mozart, which poor Hartright was so fond of, she has never
played since he left. The book is no longer in the music-stand. She took
the volume away herself, so that nobody might find it out and ask her to
play from it.

I had no opportunity of discovering whether her purpose of the morning had
changed or not, until she wished Sir Percival good-night—and then
her own words informed me that it was unaltered. She said, very quietly,
that she wished to speak to him after breakfast, and that he would find
her in her sitting-room with me. He changed colour at those words, and I
felt his hand trembling a little when it came to my turn to take it. The
event of the next morning would decide his future life, and he evidently
knew it.

I went in, as usual, through the door between our two bedrooms, to bid
Laura good-night before she went to sleep. In stooping over her to kiss
her I saw the little book of Hartright’s drawings half hidden under her
pillow, just in the place where she used to hide her favourite toys when
she was a child. I could not find it in my heart to say anything, but I
pointed to the book and shook my head. She reached both hands up to my
cheeks, and drew my face down to hers till our lips met.

“Leave it there to-night,” she whispered; “to-morrow may be cruel, and may
make me say good-bye to it for ever.”

9th.—The first event of the morning was not of a kind to raise my
spirits—a letter arrived for me from poor Walter Hartright. It is
the answer to mine describing the manner in which Sir Percival cleared
himself of the suspicions raised by Anne Catherick’s letter. He writes
shortly and bitterly about Sir Percival’s explanations, only saying that
he has no right to offer an opinion on the conduct of those who are above
him. This is sad, but his occasional references to himself grieve me still
more. He says that the effort to return to his old habits and pursuits
grows harder instead of easier to him every day and he implores me, if I
have any interest, to exert it to get him employment that will necessitate
his absence from England, and take him among new scenes and new people. I
have been made all the readier to comply with this request by a passage at
the end of his letter, which has almost alarmed me.

After mentioning that he has neither seen nor heard anything of Anne
Catherick, he suddenly breaks off, and hints in the most abrupt,
mysterious manner, that he has been perpetually watched and followed by
strange men ever since he returned to London. He acknowledges that he
cannot prove this extraordinary suspicion by fixing on any particular
persons, but he declares that the suspicion itself is present to him night
and day. This has frightened me, because it looks as if his one fixed idea
about Laura was becoming too much for his mind. I will write immediately
to some of my mother’s influential old friends in London, and press his
claims on their notice. Change of scene and change of occupation may
really be the salvation of him at this crisis in his life.

Greatly to my relief, Sir Percival sent an apology for not joining us at
breakfast. He had taken an early cup of coffee in his own room, and he was
still engaged there in writing letters. At eleven o’clock, if that hour
was convenient, he would do himself the honour of waiting on Miss Fairlie
and Miss Halcombe.

My eyes were on Laura’s face while the message was being delivered. I had
found her unaccountably quiet and composed on going into her room in the
morning, and so she remained all through breakfast. Even when we were
sitting together on the sofa in her room, waiting for Sir Percival, she
still preserved her self-control.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Marian,” was all she said; “I may forget myself
with an old friend like Mr. Gilmore, or with a dear sister like you, but I
will not forget myself with Sir Percival Glyde.”

I looked at her, and listened to her in silent surprise. Through all the
years of our close intimacy this passive force in her character had been
hidden from me—hidden even from herself, till love found it, and
suffering called it forth.

As the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven Sir Percival knocked at the
door and came in. There was suppressed anxiety and agitation in every line
of his face. The dry, sharp cough, which teases him at most times, seemed
to be troubling him more incessantly than ever. He sat down opposite to us
at the table, and Laura remained by me. I looked attentively at them both,
and he was the palest of the two.

He said a few unimportant words, with a visible effort to preserve his
customary ease of manner. But his voice was not to be steadied, and the
restless uneasiness in his eyes was not to be concealed. He must have felt
this himself, for he stopped in the middle of a sentence, and gave up even
the attempt to hide his embarrassment any longer.

There was just one moment of dead silence before Laura addressed him.

“I wish to speak to you, Sir Percival,” she said, “on a subject that is
very important to us both. My sister is here, because her presence helps
me and gives me confidence. She has not suggested one word of what I am
going to say—I speak from my own thoughts, not from hers. I am sure
you will be kind enough to understand that before I go any farther?”

Sir Percival bowed. She had proceeded thus far, with perfect outward
tranquillity and perfect propriety of manner. She looked at him, and he
looked at her. They seemed, at the outset, at least, resolved to
understand one another plainly.

“I have heard from Marian,” she went on, “that I have only to claim my
release from our engagement to obtain that release from you. It was
forbearing and generous on your part, Sir Percival, to send me such a
message. It is only doing you justice to say that I am grateful for the
offer, and I hope and believe that it is only doing myself justice to tell
you that I decline to accept it.”

His attentive face relaxed a little. But I saw one of his feet, softly,
quietly, incessantly beating on the carpet under the table, and I felt
that he was secretly as anxious as ever.

“I have not forgotten,” she said, “that you asked my father’s permission
before you honoured me with a proposal of marriage. Perhaps you have not
forgotten either what I said when I consented to our engagement? I
ventured to tell you that my father’s influence and advice had mainly
decided me to give you my promise. I was guided by my father, because I
had always found him the truest of all advisers, the best and fondest of
all protectors and friends. I have lost him now—I have only his
memory to love, but my faith in that dear dead friend has never been
shaken. I believe at this moment, as truly as I ever believed, that he
knew what was best, and that his hopes and wishes ought to be my hopes and
wishes too.”

Her voice trembled for the first time. Her restless fingers stole their
way into my lap, and held fast by one of my hands. There was another
moment of silence, and then Sir Percival spoke.

“May I ask,” he said, “if I have ever proved myself unworthy of the trust
which it has been hitherto my greatest honour and greatest happiness to
possess?”

“I have found nothing in your conduct to blame,” she answered. “You have
always treated me with the same delicacy and the same forbearance. You
have deserved my trust, and, what is of far more importance in my
estimation, you have deserved my father’s trust, out of which mine grew.
You have given me no excuse, even if I had wanted to find one, for asking
to be released from my pledge. What I have said so far has been spoken
with the wish to acknowledge my whole obligation to you. My regard for
that obligation, my regard for my father’s memory, and my regard for my
own promise, all forbid me to set the example, on my side, of
withdrawing from our present position. The breaking of our engagement must
be entirely your wish and your act, Sir Percival—not mine.”

The uneasy beating of his foot suddenly stopped, and he leaned forward
eagerly across the table.

“My act?” he said. “What reason can there be on my side for
withdrawing?”

I heard her breath quickening—I felt her hand growing cold. In spite
of what she had said to me when we were alone, I began to be afraid of
her. I was wrong.

“A reason that it is very hard to tell you,” she answered. “There is a
change in me, Sir Percival—a change which is serious enough to
justify you, to yourself and to me, in breaking off our engagement.”

His face turned so pale again that even his lips lost their colour. He
raised the arm which lay on the table, turned a little away in his chair,
and supported his head on his hand, so that his profile only was presented
to us.

“What change?” he asked. The tone in which he put the question jarred on
me—there was something painfully suppressed in it.

She sighed heavily, and leaned towards me a little, so as to rest her
shoulder against mine. I felt her trembling, and tried to spare her by
speaking myself. She stopped me by a warning pressure of her hand, and
then addressed Sir Percival one more, but this time without looking at
him.

“I have heard,” she said, “and I believe it, that the fondest and truest
of all affections is the affection which a woman ought to bear to her
husband. When our engagement began that affection was mine to give, if I
could, and yours to win, if you could. Will you pardon me, and spare me,
Sir Percival, if I acknowledge that it is not so any longer?”

A few tears gathered in her eyes, and dropped over her cheeks slowly as
she paused and waited for his answer. He did not utter a word. At the
beginning of her reply he had moved the hand on which his head rested, so
that it hid his face. I saw nothing but the upper part of his figure at
the table. Not a muscle of him moved. The fingers of the hand which
supported his head were dented deep in his hair. They might have expressed
hidden anger or hidden grief—it was hard to say which—there
was no significant trembling in them. There was nothing, absolutely
nothing, to tell the secret of his thoughts at that moment—the
moment which was the crisis of his life and the crisis of hers.

I was determined to make him declare himself, for Laura’s sake.

“Sir Percival!” I interposed sharply, “have you nothing to say when my
sister has said so much? More, in my opinion,” I added, my unlucky temper
getting the better of me, “than any man alive, in your position, has a
right to hear from her.”

That last rash sentence opened a way for him by which to escape me if he
chose, and he instantly took advantage of it.

“Pardon me, Miss Halcombe,” he said, still keeping his hand over his face,
“pardon me if I remind you that I have claimed no such right.”

The few plain words which would have brought him back to the point from
which he had wandered were just on my lips, when Laura checked me by
speaking again.

“I hope I have not made my painful acknowledgment in vain,” she continued.
“I hope it has secured me your entire confidence in what I have still to
say?”

“Pray be assured of it.” He made that brief reply warmly, dropping his
hand on the table while he spoke, and turning towards us again. Whatever
outward change had passed over him was gone now. His face was eager and
expectant—it expressed nothing but the most intense anxiety to hear
her next words.

“I wish you to understand that I have not spoken from any selfish motive,”
she said. “If you leave me, Sir Percival, after what you have just heard,
you do not leave me to marry another man, you only allow me to remain a
single woman for the rest of my life. My fault towards you has begun and
ended in my own thoughts. It can never go any farther. No word has passed—”
She hesitated, in doubt about the expression she should use next,
hesitated in a momentary confusion which it was very sad and very painful
to see. “No word has passed,” she patiently and resolutely resumed,
“between myself and the person to whom I am now referring for the first
and last time in your presence of my feelings towards him, or of his
feelings towards me—no word ever can pass—neither he nor I are
likely, in this world, to meet again. I earnestly beg you to spare me from
saying any more, and to believe me, on my word, in what I have just told
you. It is the truth, Sir Percival—the truth which I think my
promised husband has a claim to hear, at any sacrifice of my own feelings.
I trust to his generosity to pardon me, and to his honour to keep my
secret.”

“Both those trusts are sacred to me,” he said, “and both shall be sacredly
kept.”

After answering in those terms he paused, and looked at her as if he was
waiting to hear more.

“I have said all I wish to say,” she added quietly—“I have said more
than enough to justify you in withdrawing from your engagement.”

“You have said more than enough,” he answered, “to make it the dearest
object of my life to keep the engagement.” With those words he rose
from his chair, and advanced a few steps towards the place where she was
sitting.

She started violently, and a faint cry of surprise escaped her. Every word
she had spoken had innocently betrayed her purity and truth to a man who
thoroughly understood the priceless value of a pure and true woman. Her
own noble conduct had been the hidden enemy, throughout, of all the hopes
she had trusted to it. I had dreaded this from the first. I would have
prevented it, if she had allowed me the smallest chance of doing so. I
even waited and watched now, when the harm was done, for a word from Sir
Percival that would give me the opportunity of putting him in the wrong.

“You have left it to me, Miss Fairlie, to resign you,” he
continued. “I am not heartless enough to resign a woman who has just shown
herself to be the noblest of her sex.”

He spoke with such warmth and feeling, with such passionate enthusiasm,
and yet with such perfect delicacy, that she raised her head, flushed up a
little, and looked at him with sudden animation and spirit.

“No!” she said firmly. “The most wretched of her sex, if she must give
herself in marriage when she cannot give her love.”

“May she not give it in the future,” he asked, “if the one object of her
husband’s life is to deserve it?”

“Never!” she answered. “If you still persist in maintaining our
engagement, I may be your true and faithful wife, Sir Percival—your
loving wife, if I know my own heart, never!”

She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no
man alive could have steeled his heart against her. I tried hard to feel
that Sir Percival was to blame, and to say so, but my womanhood would pity
him, in spite of myself.

“I gratefully accept your faith and truth,” he said. “The least that you
can offer is more to me than the utmost that I could hope for from any
other woman in the world.”

Her left hand still held mine, but her right hand hung listlessly at her
side. He raised it gently to his lips—touched it with them, rather
than kissed it—bowed to me—and then, with perfect delicacy and
discretion, silently quitted the room.

She neither moved nor said a word when he was gone—she sat by me,
cold and still, with her eyes fixed on the ground. I saw it was hopeless
and useless to speak, and I only put my arm round her, and held her to me
in silence. We remained together so for what seemed a long and weary time—so
long and so weary, that I grew uneasy and spoke to her softly, in the hope
of producing a change.

The sound of my voice seemed to startle her into consciousness. She
suddenly drew herself away from me and rose to her feet.

“I must submit, Marian, as well as I can,” she said. “My new life has its
hard duties, and one of them begins to-day.”

As she spoke she went to a side-table near the window, on which her
sketching materials were placed, gathered them together carefully, and put
them in a drawer of her cabinet. She locked the drawer and brought the key
to me.

“I must part from everything that reminds me of him,” she said. “Keep the
key wherever you please—I shall never want it again.”

Before I could say a word she had turned away to her book-case, and had
taken from it the album that contained Walter Hartright’s drawings. She
hesitated for a moment, holding the little volume fondly in her hands—then
lifted it to her lips and kissed it.

“Oh, Laura! Laura!” I said, not angrily, not reprovingly—with
nothing but sorrow in my voice, and nothing but sorrow in my heart.

“It is the last time, Marian,” she pleaded. “I am bidding it good-bye for
ever.”

She laid the book on the table and drew out the comb that fastened her
hair. It fell, in its matchless beauty, over her back and shoulders, and
dropped round her, far below her waist. She separated one long, thin lock
from the rest, cut it off, and pinned it carefully, in the form of a
circle, on the first blank page of the album. The moment it was fastened
she closed the volume hurriedly, and placed it in my hands.

“You write to him and he writes to you,” she said. “While I am alive, if
he asks after me always tell him I am well, and never say I am unhappy.
Don’t distress him, Marian, for my sake, don’t distress him. If I
die first, promise you will give him this little book of his drawings,
with my hair in it. There can be no harm, when I am gone, in telling him
that I put it there with my own hands. And say—oh, Marian, say for
me, then, what I can never say for myself—say I loved him!”

She flung her arms round my neck, and whispered the last words in my ear
with a passionate delight in uttering them which it almost broke my heart
to hear. All the long restraint she had imposed on herself gave way in
that first last outburst of tenderness. She broke from me with hysterical
vehemence, and threw herself on the sofa in a paroxysm of sobs and tears
that shook her from head to foot.

I tried vainly to soothe her and reason with her—she was past being
soothed, and past being reasoned with. It was the sad, sudden end for us
two of this memorable day. When the fit had worn itself out she was too
exhausted to speak. She slumbered towards the afternoon, and I put away
the book of drawings so that she might not see it when she woke. My face
was calm, whatever my heart might be, when she opened her eyes again and
looked at me. We said no more to each other about the distressing
interview of the morning. Sir Percival’s name was not mentioned. Walter
Hartright was not alluded to again by either of us for the remainder of
the day.

10th.—Finding that she was composed and like herself this morning, I
returned to the painful subject of yesterday, for the sole purpose of
imploring her to let me speak to Sir Percival and Mr. Fairlie, more
plainly and strongly than she could speak to either of them herself, about
this lamentable marriage. She interposed, gently but firmly, in the middle
of my remonstrances.

“I left yesterday to decide,” she said; “and yesterday has decided. It is
too late to go back.”

Sir Percival spoke to me this afternoon about what had passed in Laura’s
room. He assured me that the unparalleled trust she had placed in him had
awakened such an answering conviction of her innocence and integrity in
his mind, that he was guiltless of having felt even a moment’s unworthy
jealousy, either at the time when he was in her presence, or afterwards
when he had withdrawn from it. Deeply as he lamented the unfortunate
attachment which had hindered the progress he might otherwise have made in
her esteem and regard, he firmly believed that it had remained
unacknowledged in the past, and that it would remain, under all changes of
circumstance which it was possible to contemplate, unacknowledged in the
future. This was his absolute conviction; and the strongest proof he could
give of it was the assurance, which he now offered, that he felt no
curiosity to know whether the attachment was of recent date or not, or who
had been the object of it. His implicit confidence in Miss Fairlie made
him satisfied with what she had thought fit to say to him, and he was
honestly innocent of the slightest feeling of anxiety to hear more.

He waited after saying those words and looked at me. I was so conscious of
my unreasonable prejudice against him—so conscious of an unworthy
suspicion that he might be speculating on my impulsively answering the
very questions which he had just described himself as resolved not to ask—that
I evaded all reference to this part of the subject with something like a
feeling of confusion on my own part. At the same time I was resolved not
to lose even the smallest opportunity of trying to plead Laura’s cause,
and I told him boldly that I regretted his generosity had not carried him
one step farther, and induced him to withdraw from the engagement
altogether.

Here, again, he disarmed me by not attempting to defend himself. He would
merely beg me to remember the difference there was between his allowing
Miss Fairlie to give him up, which was a matter of submission only, and
his forcing himself to give up Miss Fairlie, which was, in other words,
asking him to be the suicide of his own hopes. Her conduct of the day
before had so strengthened the unchangeable love and admiration of two
long years, that all active contention against those feelings, on his
part, was henceforth entirely out of his power. I must think him weak,
selfish, unfeeling towards the very woman whom he idolised, and he must
bow to my opinion as resignedly as he could—only putting it to me,
at the same time, whether her future as a single woman, pining under an
unhappily placed attachment which she could never acknowledge, could be
said to promise her a much brighter prospect than her future as the wife
of a man who worshipped the very ground she walked on? In the last case
there was hope from time, however slight it might be—in the first
case, on her own showing, there was no hope at all.

I answered him—more because my tongue is a woman’s, and must answer,
than because I had anything convincing to say. It was only too plain that
the course Laura had adopted the day before had offered him the advantage
if he chose to take it—and that he had chosen to take it. I
felt this at the time, and I feel it just as strongly now, while I write
these lines, in my own room. The one hope left is that his motives really
spring, as he says they do, from the irresistible strength of his
attachment to Laura.

Before I close my diary for to-night I must record that I wrote to-day, in
poor Hartright’s interest, to two of my mother’s old friends in London—both
men of influence and position. If they can do anything for him, I am quite
sure they will. Except Laura, I never was more anxious about any one than
I am now about Walter. All that has happened since he left us has only
increased my strong regard and sympathy for him. I hope I am doing right
in trying to help him to employment abroad—I hope, most earnestly
and anxiously, that it will end well.

11th.—Sir Percival had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and I was sent
for to join them.

I found Mr. Fairlie greatly relieved at the prospect of the “family worry”
(as he was pleased to describe his niece’s marriage) being settled at
last. So far, I did not feel called on to say anything to him about my own
opinion, but when he proceeded, in his most aggravatingly languid manner,
to suggest that the time for the marriage had better be settled next, in
accordance with Sir Percival’s wishes, I enjoyed the satisfaction of
assailing Mr. Fairlie’s nerves with as strong a protest against hurrying
Laura’s decision as I could put into words. Sir Percival immediately
assured me that he felt the force of my objection, and begged me to
believe that the proposal had not been made in consequence of any
interference on his part. Mr. Fairlie leaned back in his chair, closed his
eyes, said we both of us did honour to human nature, and then repeated his
suggestion as coolly as if neither Sir Percival nor I had said a word in
opposition to it. It ended in my flatly declining to mention the subject
to Laura, unless she first approached it of her own accord. I left the
room at once after making that declaration. Sir Percival looked seriously
embarrassed and distressed, Mr. Fairlie stretched out his lazy legs on his
velvet footstool, and said, “Dear Marian! how I envy you your robust
nervous system! Don’t bang the door!”

On going to Laura’s room I found that she had asked for me, and that Mrs.
Vesey had informed her that I was with Mr. Fairlie. She inquired at once
what I had been wanted for, and I told her all that had passed, without
attempting to conceal the vexation and annoyance that I really felt. Her
answer surprised and distressed me inexpressibly—it was the very
last reply that I should have expected her to make.

“My uncle is right,” she said. “I have caused trouble and anxiety enough
to you, and to all about me. Let me cause no more, Marian—let Sir
Percival decide.”

I remonstrated warmly, but nothing that I could say moved her.

“I am held to my engagement,” she replied; “I have broken with my old
life. The evil day will not come the less surely because I put it off. No,
Marian! once again my uncle is right. I have caused trouble enough and
anxiety enough, and I will cause no more.”

She used to be pliability itself, but she was now inflexibly passive in
her resignation—I might almost say in her despair. Dearly as I love
her, I should have been less pained if she had been violently agitated—it
was so shockingly unlike her natural character to see her as cold and
insensible as I saw her now.

12th.—Sir Percival put some questions to me at breakfast about
Laura, which left me no choice but to tell him what she had said.

While we were talking she herself came down and joined us. She was just as
unnaturally composed in Sir Percival’s presence as she had been in mine.
When breakfast was over he had an opportunity of saying a few words to her
privately, in a recess of one of the windows. They were not more than two
or three minutes together, and on their separating she left the room with
Mrs. Vesey, while Sir Percival came to me. He said he had entreated her to
favour him by maintaining her privilege of fixing the time for the
marriage at her own will and pleasure. In reply she had merely expressed
her acknowledgments, and had desired him to mention what his wishes were
to Miss Halcombe.

I have no patience to write more. In this instance, as in every other, Sir
Percival has carried his point with the utmost possible credit to himself,
in spite of everything that I can say or do. His wishes are now, what they
were, of course, when he first came here; and Laura having resigned
herself to the one inevitable sacrifice of the marriage, remains as coldly
hopeless and enduring as ever. In parting with the little occupations and
relics that reminded her of Hartright, she seems to have parted with all
her tenderness and all her impressibility. It is only three o’clock in the
afternoon while I write these lines, and Sir Percival has left us already,
in the happy hurry of a bridegroom, to prepare for the bride’s reception
at his house in Hampshire. Unless some extraordinary event happens to
prevent it they will be married exactly at the time when he wished to be
married—before the end of the year. My very fingers burn as I write
it!

13th.—A sleepless night, through uneasiness about Laura. Towards the
morning I came to a resolution to try what change of scene would do to
rouse her. She cannot surely remain in her present torpor of
insensibility, if I take her away from Limmeridge and surround her with
the pleasant faces of old friends? After some consideration I decided on
writing to the Arnolds, in Yorkshire. They are simple, kind-hearted,
hospitable people, and she has known them from her childhood. When I had
put the letter in the post-bag I told her what I had done. It would have
been a relief to me if she had shown the spirit to resist and object. But
no—she only said, “I will go anywhere with you, Marian. I
dare say you are right—I dare say the change will do me good.”

14th.—I wrote to Mr. Gilmore, informing him that there was really a
prospect of this miserable marriage taking place, and also mentioning my
idea of trying what change of scene would do for Laura. I had no heart to
go into particulars. Time enough for them when we get nearer to the end of
the year.

15th.—Three letters for me. The first, from the Arnolds, full of
delight at the prospect of seeing Laura and me. The second, from one of
the gentlemen to whom I wrote on Walter Hartright’s behalf, informing me
that he has been fortunate enough to find an opportunity of complying with
my request. The third, from Walter himself, thanking me, poor fellow, in
the warmest terms, for giving him an opportunity of leaving his home, his
country, and his friends. A private expedition to make excavations among
the ruined cities of Central America is, it seems, about to sail from
Liverpool. The draughtsman who had been already appointed to accompany it
has lost heart, and withdrawn at the eleventh hour, and Walter is to fill
his place. He is to be engaged for six months certain, from the time of
the landing in Honduras, and for a year afterwards, if the excavations are
successful, and if the funds hold out. His letter ends with a promise to
write me a farewell line when they are all on board ship, and when the
pilot leaves them. I can only hope and pray earnestly that he and I are
both acting in this matter for the best. It seems such a serious step for
him to take, that the mere contemplation of it startles me. And yet, in
his unhappy position, how can I expect him or wish him to remain at home?

16th.—The carriage is at the door. Laura and I set out on our visit
to the Arnolds to-day.

POLESDEAN LODGE, YORKSHIRE.

23rd.—A week in these new scenes and among these kind-hearted people
has done her some good, though not so much as I had hoped. I have resolved
to prolong our stay for another week at least. It is useless to go back to
Limmeridge till there is an absolute necessity for our return.

24th.—Sad news by this morning’s post. The expedition to Central
America sailed on the twenty-first. We have parted with a true man—we
have lost a faithful friend. Water Hartright has left England.

25th.—Sad news yesterday—ominous news to-day. Sir Percival
Glyde has written to Mr. Fairlie, and Mr. Fairlie has written to Laura and
me, to recall us to Limmeridge immediately.

What can this mean? Has the day for the marriage been fixed in our
absence?

II

LIMMERIDGE HOUSE.

November 27th.—My forebodings are realised. The marriage is fixed
for the twenty-second of December.

The day after we left for Polesdean Lodge Sir Percival wrote, it seems, to
Mr. Fairlie, to say that the necessary repairs and alterations in his
house in Hampshire would occupy a much longer time in completion than he
had originally anticipated. The proper estimates were to be submitted to
him as soon as possible, and it would greatly facilitate his entering into
definite arrangements with the workpeople, if he could be informed of the
exact period at which the wedding ceremony might be expected to take
place. He could then make all his calculations in reference to time,
besides writing the necessary apologies to friends who had been engaged to
visit him that winter, and who could not, of course, be received when the
house was in the hands of the workmen.

To this letter Mr. Fairlie had replied by requesting Sir Percival himself
to suggest a day for the marriage, subject to Miss Fairlie’s approval,
which her guardian willingly undertook to do his best to obtain. Sir
Percival wrote back by the next post, and proposed (in accordance with his
own views and wishes from the first?) the latter part of December—perhaps
the twenty-second, or twenty-fourth, or any other day that the lady and
her guardian might prefer. The lady not being at hand to speak for
herself, her guardian had decided, in her absence, on the earliest day
mentioned—the twenty-second of December, and had written to recall
us to Limmeridge in consequence.

After explaining these particulars to me at a private interview yesterday,
Mr. Fairlie suggested, in his most amiable manner, that I should open the
necessary negotiations to-day. Feeling that resistance was useless, unless
I could first obtain Laura’s authority to make it, I consented to speak to
her, but declared, at the same time, that I would on no consideration
undertake to gain her consent to Sir Percival’s wishes. Mr. Fairlie
complimented me on my “excellent conscience,” much as he would have
complimented me, if he had been out walking, on my “excellent
constitution,” and seemed perfectly satisfied, so far, with having simply
shifted one more family responsibility from his own shoulders to mine.

This morning I spoke to Laura as I had promised. The composure—I may
almost say, the insensibility—which she has so strangely and so
resolutely maintained ever since Sir Percival left us, was not proof
against the shock of the news I had to tell her. She turned pale and
trembled violently.

“Not so soon!” she pleaded. “Oh, Marian, not so soon!”

The slightest hint she could give was enough for me. I rose to leave the
room, and fight her battle for her at once with Mr. Fairlie.

Just as my hand was on the door, she caught fast hold of my dress and
stopped me.

“Let me go!” I said. “My tongue burns to tell your uncle that he and Sir
Percival are not to have it all their own way.”

She sighed bitterly, and still held my dress.

“No!” she said faintly. “Too late, Marian, too late!”

“Not a minute too late,” I retorted. “The question of time is our
question—and trust me, Laura, to take a woman’s full advantage of
it.”

I unclasped her hand from my gown while I spoke; but she slipped both her
arms round my waist at the same moment, and held me more effectually than
ever.

“It will only involve us in more trouble and more confusion,” she said.
“It will set you and my uncle at variance, and bring Sir Percival here
again with fresh causes of complaint—”

“So much the better!” I cried out passionately. “Who cares for his causes
of complaint? Are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man
under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the
enemies of our innocence and our peace—they drag us away from our
parents’ love and our sisters’ friendship—they take us body and soul
to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a
dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return? Let
me go, Laura—I’m mad when I think of it!”

The tears—miserable, weak, women’s tears of vexation and rage—started
to my eyes. She smiled sadly, and put her handkerchief over my face to
hide for me the betrayal of my own weakness—the weakness of all
others which she knew that I most despised.

“Oh, Marian!” she said. “You crying! Think what you would say to
me, if the places were changed, and if those tears were mine. All your
love and courage and devotion will not alter what must happen, sooner or
later. Let my uncle have his way. Let us have no more troubles and
heart-burnings that any sacrifice of mine can prevent. Say you will live
with me, Marian, when I am married—and say no more.”

But I did say more. I forced back the contemptible tears that were no
relief to me, and that only distressed her, and reasoned and
pleaded as calmly as I could. It was of no avail. She made me twice repeat
the promise to live with her when she was married, and then suddenly asked
a question which turned my sorrow and my sympathy for her into a new
direction.

“While we were at Polesdean,” she said, “you had a letter, Marian——”

Her altered tone—the abrupt manner in which she looked away from me
and hid her face on my shoulder—the hesitation which silenced her
before she had completed her question, all told me, but too plainly, to
whom the half-expressed inquiry pointed.

“I thought, Laura, that you and I were never to refer to him again,” I
said gently.

“You had a letter from him?” she persisted.

“Yes,” I replied, “if you must know it.”

“Do you mean to write to him again?”

I hesitated. I had been afraid to tell her of his absence from England, or
of the manner in which my exertions to serve his new hopes and projects
had connected me with his departure. What answer could I make? He was gone
where no letters could reach him for months, perhaps for years, to come.

“Suppose I do mean to write to him again,” I said at last. “What then,
Laura?”

Her cheek grew burning hot against my neck, and her arms trembled and
tightened round me.

“Don’t tell him about the twenty-second,” she whispered. “Promise,
Marian—pray promise you will not even mention my name to him when
you write next.”

I gave the promise. No words can say how sorrowfully I gave it. She
instantly took her arm from my waist, walked away to the window, and stood
looking out with her back to me. After a moment she spoke once more, but
without turning round, without allowing me to catch the smallest glimpse
of her face.

“Are you going to my uncle’s room?” she asked. “Will you say that I
consent to whatever arrangement he may think best? Never mind leaving me,
Marian. I shall be better alone for a little while.”

I went out. If, as soon as I got into the passage, I could have
transported Mr. Fairlie and Sir Percival Glyde to the uttermost ends of
the earth by lifting one of my fingers, that finger would have been raised
without an instant’s hesitation. For once my unhappy temper now stood my
friend. I should have broken down altogether and burst into a violent fit
of crying, if my tears had not been all burnt up in the heat of my anger.
As it was, I dashed into Mr. Fairlie’s room—called to him as harshly
as possible, “Laura consents to the twenty-second”—and dashed out
again without waiting for a word of answer. I banged the door after me,
and I hope I shattered Mr. Fairlie’s nervous system for the rest of the
day.

28th.—This morning I read poor Hartright’s farewell letter over
again, a doubt having crossed my mind since yesterday, whether I am acting
wisely in concealing the fact of his departure from Laura.

On reflection, I still think I am right. The allusions in his letter to
the preparations made for the expedition to Central America, all show that
the leaders of it know it to be dangerous. If the discovery of this makes
me uneasy, what would it make her? It is bad enough to feel
that his departure has deprived us of the friend of all others to whose
devotion we could trust in the hour of need, if ever that hour comes and
finds us helpless; but it is far worse to know that he has gone from us to
face the perils of a bad climate, a wild country, and a disturbed
population. Surely it would be a cruel candour to tell Laura this, without
a pressing and a positive necessity for it?

I almost doubt whether I ought not to go a step farther, and burn the
letter at once, for fear of its one day falling into wrong hands. It not
only refers to Laura in terms which ought to remain a secret for ever
between the writer and me, but it reiterates his suspicion—so
obstinate, so unaccountable, and so alarming—that he has been
secretly watched since he left Limmeridge. He declares that he saw the
faces of the two strange men who followed him about the streets of London,
watching him among the crowd which gathered at Liverpool to see the
expedition embark, and he positively asserts that he heard the name of
Anne Catherick pronounced behind him as he got into the boat. His own
words are, “These events have a meaning, these events must lead to a
result. The mystery of Anne Catherick is not cleared up yet. She
may never cross my path again, but if ever she crosses yours, make better
use of the opportunity, Miss Halcombe, than I made of it. I speak on
strong conviction—I entreat you to remember what I say.” These are
his own expressions. There is no danger of my forgetting them—my
memory is only too ready to dwell on any words of Hartright’s that refer
to Anne Catherick. But there is danger in my keeping the letter. The
merest accident might place it at the mercy of strangers. I may fall ill—I
may die. Better to burn it at once, and have one anxiety the less.

It is burnt. The ashes of his farewell letter—the last he may ever
write to me—lie in a few black fragments on the hearth. Is this the
sad end to all that sad story? Oh, not the end—surely, surely not
the end already!

29th.—The preparations for the marriage have begun. The dressmaker
has come to receive her orders. Laura is perfectly impassive, perfectly
careless about the question of all others in which a woman’s personal
interests are most closely bound up. She has left it all to the dressmaker
and to me. If poor Hartright had been the baronet, and the husband of her
father’s choice, how differently she would have behaved! How anxious and
capricious she would have been, and what a hard task the best of
dressmakers would have found it to please her!

30th.—We hear every day from Sir Percival. The last news is that the
alterations in his house will occupy from four to six months before they
can be properly completed. If painters, paperhangers, and upholsterers
could make happiness as well as splendour, I should be interested about
their proceedings in Laura’s future home. As it is, the only part of Sir
Percival’s last letter which does not leave me as it found me, perfectly
indifferent to all his plans and projects, is the part which refers to the
wedding tour. He proposes, as Laura is delicate, and as the winter
threatens to be unusually severe, to take her to Rome, and to remain in
Italy until the early part of next summer. If this plan should not be
approved, he is equally ready, although he has no establishment of his own
in town, to spend the season in London, in the most suitable furnished
house that can be obtained for the purpose.

Putting myself and my own feelings entirely out of the question (which it
is my duty to do, and which I have done), I, for one, have no doubt of the
propriety of adopting the first of these proposals. In either case a
separation between Laura and me is inevitable. It will be a longer
separation, in the event of their going abroad, than it would be in the
event of their remaining in London—but we must set against this
disadvantage the benefit to Laura, on the other side, of passing the
winter in a mild climate, and more than that, the immense assistance in
raising her spirits, and reconciling her to her new existence, which the
mere wonder and excitement of travelling for the first time in her life in
the most interesting country in the world, must surely afford. She is not
of a disposition to find resources in the conventional gaieties and
excitements of London. They would only make the first oppression of this
lamentable marriage fall the heavier on her. I dread the beginning of her
new life more than words can tell, but I see some hope for her if she
travels—none if she remains at home.

It is strange to look back at this latest entry in my journal, and to find
that I am writing of the marriage and the parting with Laura, as people
write of a settled thing. It seems so cold and so unfeeling to be looking
at the future already in this cruelly composed way. But what other way is
possible, now that the time is drawing so near? Before another month is
over our heads she will be his Laura instead of mine! His
Laura! I am as little able to realise the idea which those two words
convey—my mind feels almost as dulled and stunned by it—as if
writing of her marriage were like writing of her death.

December 1st.—A sad, sad day—a day that I have no heart to
describe at any length. After weakly putting it off last night, I was
obliged to speak to her this morning of Sir Percival’s proposal about the
wedding tour.

In the full conviction that I should be with her wherever she went, the
poor child—for a child she is still in many things—was almost
happy at the prospect of seeing the wonders of Florence and Rome and
Naples. It nearly broke my heart to dispel her delusion, and to bring her
face to face with the hard truth. I was obliged to tell her that no man
tolerates a rival—not even a woman rival—in his wife’s
affections, when he first marries, whatever he may do afterwards. I was
obliged to warn her that my chance of living with her permanently under
her own roof, depended entirely on my not arousing Sir Percival’s jealousy
and distrust by standing between them at the beginning of their marriage,
in the position of the chosen depositary of his wife’s closest secrets.
Drop by drop I poured the profaning bitterness of this world’s wisdom into
that pure heart and that innocent mind, while every higher and better
feeling within me recoiled from my miserable task. It is over now. She has
learnt her hard, her inevitable lesson. The simple illusions of her
girlhood are gone, and my hand has stripped them off. Better mine than his—that
is all my consolation—better mine than his.

So the first proposal is the proposal accepted. They are to go to Italy,
and I am to arrange, with Sir Percival’s permission, for meeting them and
staying with them when they return to England. In other words, I am to ask
a personal favour, for the first time in my life, and to ask it of the man
of all others to whom I least desire to owe a serious obligation of any
kind. Well! I think I could do even more than that, for Laura’s sake.

2nd.—On looking back, I find myself always referring to Sir Percival
in disparaging terms. In the turn affairs have now taken, I must and will
root out my prejudice against him. I cannot think how it first got into my
mind. It certainly never existed in former times.

Is it Laura’s reluctance to become his wife that has set me against him?
Have Hartright’s perfectly intelligible prejudices infected me without my
suspecting their influence? Does that letter of Anne Catherick’s still
leave a lurking distrust in my mind, in spite of Sir Percival’s
explanation, and of the proof in my possession of the truth of it? I
cannot account for the state of my own feelings; the one thing I am
certain of is, that it is my duty—doubly my duty now—not to
wrong Sir Percival by unjustly distrusting him. If it has got to be a
habit with me always to write of him in the same unfavourable manner, I
must and will break myself of this unworthy tendency, even though the
effort should force me to close the pages of my journal till the marriage
is over! I am seriously dissatisfied with myself—I will write no
more to-day.

December 16th.—A whole fortnight has passed, and I have not once
opened these pages. I have been long enough away from my journal to come
back to it with a healthier and better mind, I hope, so far as Sir
Percival is concerned.

There is not much to record of the past two weeks. The dresses are almost
all finished, and the new travelling trunks have been sent here from
London. Poor dear Laura hardly leaves me for a moment all day, and last
night, when neither of us could sleep, she came and crept into my bed to
talk to me there. “I shall lose you so soon, Marian,” she said; “I must
make the most of you while I can.”

They are to be married at Limmeridge Church, and thank Heaven, not one of
the neighbours is to be invited to the ceremony. The only visitor will be
our old friend, Mr. Arnold, who is to come from Polesdean to give Laura
away, her uncle being far too delicate to trust himself outside the door
in such inclement weather as we now have. If I were not determined, from
this day forth, to see nothing but the bright side of our prospects, the
melancholy absence of any male relative of Laura’s, at the most important
moment of her life, would make me very gloomy and very distrustful of the
future. But I have done with gloom and distrust—that is to say, I
have done with writing about either the one or the other in this journal.

Sir Percival is to arrive to-morrow. He offered, in case we wished to
treat him on terms of rigid etiquette, to write and ask our clergyman to
grant him the hospitality of the rectory, during the short period of his
sojourn at Limmeridge, before the marriage. Under the circumstances,
neither Mr. Fairlie nor I thought it at all necessary for us to trouble
ourselves about attending to trifling forms and ceremonies. In our wild
moorland country, and in this great lonely house, we may well claim to be
beyond the reach of the trivial conventionalities which hamper people in
other places. I wrote to Sir Percival to thank him for his polite offer,
and to beg that he would occupy his old rooms, just as usual, at
Limmeridge House.

17th.—He arrived to-day, looking, as I thought, a little worn and
anxious, but still talking and laughing like a man in the best possible
spirits. He brought with him some really beautiful presents in jewellery,
which Laura received with her best grace, and, outwardly at least, with
perfect self-possession. The only sign I can detect of the struggle it
must cost her to preserve appearances at this trying time, expresses
itself in a sudden unwillingness, on her part, ever to be left alone.
Instead of retreating to her own room, as usual, she seems to dread going
there. When I went upstairs to-day, after lunch, to put on my bonnet for a
walk, she volunteered to join me, and again, before dinner, she threw the
door open between our two rooms, so that we might talk to each other while
we were dressing. “Keep me always doing something,” she said; “keep me
always in company with somebody. Don’t let me think—that is all I
ask now, Marian—don’t let me think.”

This sad change in her only increases her attractions for Sir Percival. He
interprets it, I can see, to his own advantage. There is a feverish flush
in her cheeks, a feverish brightness in her eyes, which he welcomes as the
return of her beauty and the recovery of her spirits. She talked to-day at
dinner with a gaiety and carelessness so false, so shockingly out of her
character, that I secretly longed to silence her and take her away. Sir
Percival’s delight and surprise appeared to be beyond all expression. The
anxiety which I had noticed on his face when he arrived totally
disappeared from it, and he looked, even to my eyes, a good ten years
younger than he really is.

There can be no doubt—though some strange perversity prevents me
from seeing it myself—there can be no doubt that Laura’s future
husband is a very handsome man. Regular features form a personal advantage
to begin with—and he has them. Bright brown eyes, either in man or
woman, are a great attraction—and he has them. Even baldness, when
it is only baldness over the forehead (as in his case), is rather becoming
than not in a man, for it heightens the head and adds to the intelligence
of the face. Grace and ease of movement, untiring animation of manner,
ready, pliant, conversational powers—all these are unquestionable
merits, and all these he certainly possesses. Surely Mr. Gilmore, ignorant
as he is of Laura’s secret, was not to blame for feeling surprised that
she should repent of her marriage engagement? Any one else in his place
would have shared our good old friend’s opinion. If I were asked, at this
moment, to say plainly what defects I have discovered in Sir Percival, I
could only point out two. One, his incessant restlessness and excitability—which
may be caused, naturally enough, by unusual energy of character. The
other, his short, sharp, ill-tempered manner of speaking to the servants—which
may be only a bad habit after all. No, I cannot dispute it, and I will not
dispute it—Sir Percival is a very handsome and a very agreeable man.
There! I have written it down at last, and I am glad it’s over.

18th.—Feeling weary and depressed this morning, I left Laura with
Mrs. Vesey, and went out alone for one of my brisk midday walks, which I
have discontinued too much of late. I took the dry airy road over the moor
that leads to Todd’s Corner. After having been out half an hour, I was
excessively surprised to see Sir Percival approaching me from the
direction of the farm. He was walking rapidly, swinging his stick, his
head erect as usual, and his shooting jacket flying open in the wind. When
we met he did not wait for me to ask any questions—he told me at
once that he had been to the farm to inquire if Mr. or Mrs. Todd had
received any tidings, since his last visit to Limmeridge, of Anne
Catherick.

“You found, of course, that they had heard nothing?” I said.

“Nothing whatever,” he replied. “I begin to be seriously afraid that we
have lost her. Do you happen to know,” he continued, looking me in the
face very attentively “if the artist—Mr. Hartright—is in a
position to give us any further information?”

“He has neither heard of her, nor seen her, since he left Cumberland,” I
answered.

“Very sad,” said Sir Percival, speaking like a man who was disappointed,
and yet, oddly enough, looking at the same time like a man who was
relieved. “It is impossible to say what misfortunes may not have happened
to the miserable creature. I am inexpressibly annoyed at the failure of
all my efforts to restore her to the care and protection which she so
urgently needs.”

This time he really looked annoyed. I said a few sympathising words, and
we then talked of other subjects on our way back to the house. Surely my
chance meeting with him on the moor has disclosed another favourable trait
in his character? Surely it was singularly considerate and unselfish of
him to think of Anne Catherick on the eve of his marriage, and to go all
the way to Todd’s Corner to make inquiries about her, when he might have
passed the time so much more agreeably in Laura’s society? Considering
that he can only have acted from motives of pure charity, his conduct,
under the circumstances, shows unusual good feeling and deserves
extraordinary praise. Well! I give him extraordinary praise—and
there’s an end of it.

19th.—More discoveries in the inexhaustible mine of Sir Percival’s
virtues.

To-day I approached the subject of my proposed sojourn under his wife’s
roof when he brings her back to England. I had hardly dropped my first
hint in this direction before he caught me warmly by the hand, and said I
had made the very offer to him which he had been, on his side, most
anxious to make to me. I was the companion of all others whom he most
sincerely longed to secure for his wife, and he begged me to believe that
I had conferred a lasting favour on him by making the proposal to live
with Laura after her marriage, exactly as I had always lived with her
before it.

When I had thanked him in her name and mine for his considerate kindness
to both of us, we passed next to the subject of his wedding tour, and
began to talk of the English society in Rome to which Laura was to be
introduced. He ran over the names of several friends whom he expected to
meet abroad this winter. They were all English, as well as I can remember,
with one exception. The one exception was Count Fosco.

The mention of the Count’s name, and the discovery that he and his wife
are likely to meet the bride and bridegroom on the continent, puts Laura’s
marriage, for the first time, in a distinctly favourable light. It is
likely to be the means of healing a family feud. Hitherto Madame Fosco has
chosen to forget her obligations as Laura’s aunt out of sheer spite
against the late Mr. Fairlie for his conduct in the affair of the legacy.
Now however, she can persist in this course of conduct no longer. Sir
Percival and Count Fosco are old and fast friends, and their wives will
have no choice but to meet on civil terms. Madame Fosco in her maiden days
was one of the most impertinent women I ever met with—capricious,
exacting, and vain to the last degree of absurdity. If her husband has
succeeded in bringing her to her senses, he deserves the gratitude of
every member of the family, and he may have mine to begin with.

I am becoming anxious to know the Count. He is the most intimate friend of
Laura’s husband, and in that capacity he excites my strongest interest.
Neither Laura nor I have ever seen him. All I know of him is that his
accidental presence, years ago, on the steps of the Trinita del Monte at
Rome, assisted Sir Percival’s escape from robbery and assassination at the
critical moment when he was wounded in the hand, and might the next
instant have been wounded in the heart. I remember also that, at the time
of the late Mr. Fairlie’s absurd objections to his sister’s marriage, the
Count wrote him a very temperate and sensible letter on the subject,
which, I am ashamed to say, remained unanswered. This is all I know of Sir
Percival’s friend. I wonder if he will ever come to England? I wonder if I
shall like him?

My pen is running away into mere speculation. Let me return to sober
matter of fact. It is certain that Sir Percival’s reception of my
venturesome proposal to live with his wife was more than kind, it was
almost affectionate. I am sure Laura’s husband will have no reason to
complain of me if I can only go on as I have begun. I have already
declared him to be handsome, agreeable, full of good feeling towards the
unfortunate and full of affectionate kindness towards me. Really, I hardly
know myself again, in my new character of Sir Percival’s warmest friend.

20th.—I hate Sir Percival! I flatly deny his good looks. I consider
him to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and totally wanting in
kindness and good feeling. Last night the cards for the married couple
were sent home. Laura opened the packet and saw her future name in print
for the first time. Sir Percival looked over her shoulder familiarly at
the new card which had already transformed Miss Fairlie into Lady Glyde—smiled
with the most odious self-complacency, and whispered something in her ear.
I don’t know what it was—Laura has refused to tell me—but I
saw her face turn to such a deadly whiteness that I thought she would have
fainted. He took no notice of the change—he seemed to be barbarously
unconscious that he had said anything to pain her. All my old feelings of
hostility towards him revived on the instant, and all the hours that have
passed since have done nothing to dissipate them. I am more unreasonable
and more unjust than ever. In three words—how glibly my pen writes
them!—in three words, I hate him.

21st.—Have the anxieties of this anxious time shaken me a little, at
last? I have been writing, for the last few days, in a tone of levity
which, Heaven knows, is far enough from my heart, and which it has rather
shocked me to discover on looking back at the entries in my journal.

Perhaps I may have caught the feverish excitement of Laura’s spirits for
the last week. If so, the fit has already passed away from me, and has
left me in a very strange state of mind. A persistent idea has been
forcing itself on my attention, ever since last night, that something will
yet happen to prevent the marriage. What has produced this singular fancy?
Is it the indirect result of my apprehensions for Laura’s future? Or has
it been unconsciously suggested to me by the increasing restlessness and
irritability which I have certainly observed in Sir Percival’s manner as
the wedding-day draws nearer and nearer? Impossible to say. I know that I
have the idea—surely the wildest idea, under the circumstances, that
ever entered a woman’s head?—but try as I may, I cannot trace it
back to its source.

This last day has been all confusion and wretchedness. How can I write
about it?—and yet, I must write. Anything is better than brooding
over my own gloomy thoughts.

Kind Mrs. Vesey, whom we have all too much overlooked and forgotten of
late, innocently caused us a sad morning to begin with. She has been, for
months past, secretly making a warm Shetland shawl for her dear pupil—a
most beautiful and surprising piece of work to be done by a woman at her
age and with her habits. The gift was presented this morning, and poor
warm-hearted Laura completely broke down when the shawl was put proudly on
her shoulders by the loving old friend and guardian of her motherless
childhood. I was hardly allowed time to quiet them both, or even to dry my
own eyes, when I was sent for by Mr. Fairlie, to be favoured with a long
recital of his arrangements for the preservation of his own tranquillity
on the wedding-day.

“Dear Laura” was to receive his present—a shabby ring, with her
affectionate uncle’s hair for an ornament, instead of a precious stone,
and with a heartless French inscription inside, about congenial sentiments
and eternal friendship—“dear Laura” was to receive this tender
tribute from my hands immediately, so that she might have plenty of time
to recover from the agitation produced by the gift before she appeared in
Mr. Fairlie’s presence. “Dear Laura” was to pay him a little visit that
evening, and to be kind enough not to make a scene. “Dear Laura” was to
pay him another little visit in her wedding-dress the next morning, and to
be kind enough, again, not to make a scene. “Dear Laura” was to look in
once more, for the third time, before going away, but without harrowing
his feelings by saying when she was going away, and without tears—“in
the name of pity, in the name of everything, dear Marian, that is most
affectionate and most domestic, and most delightfully and charmingly
self-composed, without tears!” I was so exasperated by this
miserable selfish trifling, at such a time, that I should certainly have
shocked Mr. Fairlie by some of the hardest and rudest truths he has ever
heard in his life, if the arrival of Mr. Arnold from Polesdean had not
called me away to new duties downstairs.

The rest of the day is indescribable. I believe no one in the house really
knew how it passed. The confusion of small events, all huddled together
one on the other, bewildered everybody. There were dresses sent home that
had been forgotten—there were trunks to be packed and unpacked and
packed again—there were presents from friends far and near, friends
high and low. We were all needlessly hurried, all nervously expectant of
the morrow. Sir Percival, especially, was too restless now to remain five
minutes together in the same place. That short, sharp cough of his
troubled him more than ever. He was in and out of doors all day long, and
he seemed to grow so inquisitive on a sudden, that he questioned the very
strangers who came on small errands to the house. Add to all this, the one
perpetual thought in Laura’s mind and mine, that we were to part the next
day, and the haunting dread, unexpressed by either of us, and yet ever
present to both, that this deplorable marriage might prove to be the one
fatal error of her life and the one hopeless sorrow of mine. For the first
time in all the years of our close and happy intercourse we almost avoided
looking each other in the face, and we refrained, by common consent, from
speaking together in private through the whole evening. I can dwell on it
no longer. Whatever future sorrows may be in store for me, I shall always
look back on this twenty-first of December as the most comfortless and
most miserable day of my life.

I am writing these lines in the solitude of my own room, long after
midnight, having just come back from a stolen look at Laura in her pretty
little white bed—the bed she has occupied since the days of her
girlhood.

There she lay, unconscious that I was looking at her—quiet, more
quiet than I had dared to hope, but not sleeping. The glimmer of the
night-light showed me that her eyes were only partially closed—the
traces of tears glistened between her eyelids. My little keepsake—only
a brooch—lay on the table at her bedside, with her prayer-book, and
the miniature portrait of her father which she takes with her wherever she
goes. I waited a moment, looking at her from behind her pillow, as she lay
beneath me, with one arm and hand resting on the white coverlid, so still,
so quietly breathing, that the frill on her night-dress never moved—I
waited, looking at her, as I have seen her thousands of times, as I shall
never see her again—and then stole back to my room. My own love!
with all your wealth, and all your beauty, how friendless you are! The one
man who would give his heart’s life to serve you is far away, tossing,
this stormy night, on the awful sea. Who else is left to you? No father,
no brother—no living creature but the helpless, useless woman who
writes these sad lines, and watches by you for the morning, in sorrow that
she cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot conquer. Oh, what a trust is
to be placed in that man’s hands to-morrow! If ever he forgets it—if
ever he injures a hair of her head!——

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. Seven o’clock. A wild, unsettled
morning. She has just risen—better and calmer, now that the time has
come, than she was yesterday.

Ten o’clock. She is dressed. We have kissed each other—we
have promised each other not to lose courage. I am away for a moment in my
own room. In the whirl and confusion of my thoughts, I can detect that
strange fancy of some hindrance happening to stop the marriage still
hanging about my mind. Is it hanging about his mind too? I see him
from the window, moving hither and thither uneasily among the carriages at
the door.—How can I write such folly! The marriage is a certainty.
In less than half an hour we start for the church.

Eleven o’clock. It is all over. They are married.

Three o’clock. They are gone! I am blind with crying—I can
write no more——

[The First Epoch of the Story closes here.]

THE SECOND EPOCH

THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE.

I

BLACKWATER PARK, HAMPSHIRE.

June 11th, 1850.—Six months to look back on—six long, lonely
months since Laura and I last saw each other!

How many days have I still to wait? Only one! To-morrow, the twelfth, the
travellers return to England. I can hardly realise my own happiness—I
can hardly believe that the next four-and-twenty hours will complete the
last day of separation between Laura and me.

She and her husband have been in Italy all the winter, and afterwards in
the Tyrol. They come back, accompanied by Count Fosco and his wife, who
propose to settle somewhere in the neighbourhood of London, and who have
engaged to stay at Blackwater Park for the summer months before deciding
on a place of residence. So long as Laura returns, no matter who returns
with her. Sir Percival may fill the house from floor to ceiling, if he
likes, on condition that his wife and I inhabit it together.

Meanwhile, here I am, established at Blackwater Park, “the ancient and
interesting seat” (as the county history obligingly informs me) “of Sir
Percival Glyde, Bart.,” and the future abiding-place (as I may now venture
to add on my account) of plain Marian Halcombe, spinster, now settled in a
snug little sitting-room, with a cup of tea by her side, and all her
earthly possessions ranged round her in three boxes and a bag.

I left Limmeridge yesterday, having received Laura’s delightful letter
from Paris the day before. I had been previously uncertain whether I was
to meet them in London or in Hampshire, but this last letter informed me
that Sir Percival proposed to land at Southampton, and to travel straight
on to his country-house. He has spent so much money abroad that he has
none left to defray the expenses of living in London for the remainder of
the season, and he is economically resolved to pass the summer and autumn
quietly at Blackwater. Laura has had more than enough of excitement and
change of scene, and is pleased at the prospect of country tranquillity
and retirement which her husband’s prudence provides for her. As for me, I
am ready to be happy anywhere in her society. We are all, therefore, well
contented in our various ways, to begin with.

Last night I slept in London, and was delayed there so long to-day by
various calls and commissions, that I did not reach Blackwater this
evening till after dusk.

Judging by my vague impressions of the place thus far, it is the exact
opposite of Limmeridge.

The house is situated on a dead flat, and seems to be shut in—almost
suffocated, to my north-country notions, by trees. I have seen nobody but
the man-servant who opened the door to me, and the housekeeper, a very
civil person, who showed me the way to my own room, and got me my tea. I
have a nice little boudoir and bedroom, at the end of a long passage on
the first floor. The servants and some of the spare rooms are on the
second floor, and all the living rooms are on the ground floor. I have not
seen one of them yet, and I know nothing about the house, except that one
wing of it is said to be five hundred years old, that it had a moat round
it once, and that it gets its name of Blackwater from a lake in the park.

Eleven o’clock has just struck, in a ghostly and solemn manner, from a
turret over the centre of the house, which I saw when I came in. A large
dog has been woke, apparently by the sound of the bell, and is howling and
yawning drearily, somewhere round a corner. I hear echoing footsteps in
the passages below, and the iron thumping of bolts and bars at the house
door. The servants are evidently going to bed. Shall I follow their
example?

No, I am not half sleepy enough. Sleepy, did I say? I feel as if I should
never close my eyes again. The bare anticipation of seeing that dear face,
and hearing that well-known voice to-morrow, keeps me in a perpetual fever
of excitement. If I only had the privileges of a man, I would order out
Sir Percival’s best horse instantly, and tear away on a night-gallop,
eastward, to meet the rising sun—a long, hard, heavy, ceaseless
gallop of hours and hours, like the famous highwayman’s ride to York.
Being, however, nothing but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and
petticoats for life, I must respect the house-keeper’s opinions, and try
to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way.

Reading is out of the question—I can’t fix my attention on books.
Let me try if I can write myself into sleepiness and fatigue. My journal
has been very much neglected of late. What can I recall—standing, as
I now do, on the threshold of a new life—of persons and events, of
chances and changes, during the past six months—the long, weary,
empty interval since Laura’s wedding-day?

Walter Hartright is uppermost in my memory, and he passes first in the
shadowy procession of my absent friends. I received a few lines from him,
after the landing of the expedition in Honduras, written more cheerfully
and hopefully than he has written yet. A month or six weeks later I saw an
extract from an American newspaper, describing the departure of the
adventurers on their inland journey. They were last seen entering a wild
primeval forest, each man with his rifle on his shoulder and his baggage
at his back. Since that time, civilisation has lost all trace of them. Not
a line more have I received from Walter, not a fragment of news from the
expedition has appeared in any of the public journals.

The same dense, disheartening obscurity hangs over the fate and fortunes
of Anne Catherick, and her companion, Mrs. Clements. Nothing whatever has
been heard of either of them. Whether they are in the country or out of
it, whether they are living or dead, no one knows. Even Sir Percival’s
solicitor has lost all hope, and has ordered the useless search after the
fugitives to be finally given up.

Our good old friend Mr. Gilmore has met with a sad check in his active
professional career. Early in the spring we were alarmed by hearing that
he had been found insensible at his desk, and that the seizure was
pronounced to be an apoplectic fit. He had been long complaining of
fulness and oppression in the head, and his doctor had warned him of the
consequences that would follow his persistency in continuing to work,
early and late, as if he were still a young man. The result now is that he
has been positively ordered to keep out of his office for a year to come,
at least, and to seek repose of body and relief of mind by altogether
changing his usual mode of life. The business is left, accordingly, to be
carried on by his partner, and he is himself, at this moment, away in
Germany, visiting some relations who are settled there in mercantile
pursuits. Thus another true friend and trustworthy adviser is lost to us—lost,
I earnestly hope and trust, for a time only.

Poor Mrs. Vesey travelled with me as far as London. It was impossible to
abandon her to solitude at Limmeridge after Laura and I had both left the
house, and we have arranged that she is to live with an unmarried younger
sister of hers, who keeps a school at Clapham. She is to come here this
autumn to visit her pupil—I might almost say her adopted child. I
saw the good old lady safe to her destination, and left her in the care of
her relative, quietly happy at the prospect of seeing Laura again in a few
months’ time.

As for Mr. Fairlie, I believe I am guilty of no injustice if I describe
him as being unutterably relieved by having the house clear of us women.
The idea of his missing his niece is simply preposterous—he used to
let months pass in the old times without attempting to see her—and
in my case and Mrs. Vesey’s, I take leave to consider his telling us both
that he was half heart-broken at our departure, to be equivalent to a
confession that he was secretly rejoiced to get rid of us. His last
caprice has led him to keep two photographers incessantly employed in
producing sun-pictures of all the treasures and curiosities in his
possession. One complete copy of the collection of the photographs is to
be presented to the Mechanics’ Institution of Carlisle, mounted on the
finest cardboard, with ostentatious red-letter inscriptions underneath,
“Madonna and Child by Raphael. In the possession of Frederick Fairlie,
Esquire.” “Copper coin of the period of Tiglath Pileser. In the possession
of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire.” “Unique Rembrandt etching. Known all over
Europe as The Smudge, from a printer’s blot in the corner which
exists in no other copy. Valued at three hundred guineas. In the
possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esq.” Dozens of photographs of this sort,
and all inscribed in this manner, were completed before I left Cumberland,
and hundreds more remain to be done. With this new interest to occupy him,
Mr. Fairlie will be a happy man for months and months to come, and the two
unfortunate photographers will share the social martyrdom which he has
hitherto inflicted on his valet alone.

So much for the persons and events which hold the foremost place in my
memory. What next of the one person who holds the foremost place in my
heart? Laura has been present to my thoughts all the while I have been
writing these lines. What can I recall of her during the past six months,
before I close my journal for the night?

I have only her letters to guide me, and on the most important of all the
questions which our correspondence can discuss, every one of those letters
leaves me in the dark.

Does he treat her kindly? Is she happier now than she was when I parted
with her on the wedding-day? All my letters have contained these two
inquiries, put more or less directly, now in one form, and now in another,
and all, on that point only, have remained without reply, or have been
answered as if my questions merely related to the state of her health. She
informs me, over and over again, that she is perfectly well—that
travelling agrees with her—that she is getting through the winter,
for the first time in her life, without catching cold—but not a word
can I find anywhere which tells me plainly that she is reconciled to her
marriage, and that she can now look back to the twenty-second of December
without any bitter feelings of repentance and regret. The name of her
husband is only mentioned in her letters, as she might mention the name of
a friend who was travelling with them, and who had undertaken to make all
the arrangements for the journey. “Sir Percival” has settled that we leave
on such a day—“Sir Percival” has decided that we travel by such a
road. Sometimes she writes “Percival” only, but very seldom—in nine
cases out of ten she gives him his title.

I cannot find that his habits and opinions have changed and coloured hers
in any single particular. The usual moral transformation which is
insensibly wrought in a young, fresh, sensitive woman by her marriage,
seems never to have taken place in Laura. She writes of her own thoughts
and impressions, amid all the wonders she has seen, exactly as she might
have written to some one else, if I had been travelling with her instead
of her husband. I see no betrayal anywhere of sympathy of any kind
existing between them. Even when she wanders from the subject of her
travels, and occupies herself with the prospects that await her in
England, her speculations are busied with her future as my sister, and
persistently neglect to notice her future as Sir Percival’s wife. In all
this there is no undertone of complaint to warn me that she is absolutely
unhappy in her married life. The impression I have derived from our
correspondence does not, thank God, lead me to any such distressing
conclusion as that. I only see a sad torpor, an unchangeable indifference,
when I turn my mind from her in the old character of a sister, and look at
her, through the medium of her letters, in the new character of a wife. In
other words, it is always Laura Fairlie who has been writing to me for the
last six months, and never Lady Glyde.

The strange silence which she maintains on the subject of her husband’s
character and conduct, she preserves with almost equal resolution in the
few references which her later letters contain to the name of her
husband’s bosom friend, Count Fosco.

For some unexplained reason the Count and his wife appear to have changed
their plans abruptly, at the end of last autumn, and to have gone to
Vienna instead of going to Rome, at which latter place Sir Percival had
expected to find them when he left England. They only quitted Vienna in
the spring, and travelled as far as the Tyrol to meet the bride and
bridegroom on their homeward journey. Laura writes readily enough about
the meeting with Madame Fosco, and assures me that she has found her aunt
so much changed for the better—so much quieter, and so much more
sensible as a wife than she was as a single woman—that I shall
hardly know her again when I see her here. But on the subject of Count
Fosco (who interests me infinitely more than his wife), Laura is
provokingly circumspect and silent. She only says that he puzzles her, and
that she will not tell me what her impression of him is until I have seen
him, and formed my own opinion first.

This, to my mind, looks ill for the Count. Laura has preserved, far more
perfectly than most people do in later life, the child’s subtle faculty of
knowing a friend by instinct, and if I am right in assuming that her first
impression of Count Fosco has not been favourable, I for one am in some
danger of doubting and distrusting that illustrious foreigner before I
have so much as set eyes on him. But, patience, patience—this
uncertainty, and many uncertainties more, cannot last much longer.
To-morrow will see all my doubts in a fair way of being cleared up, sooner
or later.

Twelve o’clock has struck, and I have just come back to close these pages,
after looking out at my open window.

It is a still, sultry, moonless night. The stars are dull and few. The
trees that shut out the view on all sides look dimly black and solid in
the distance, like a great wall of rock. I hear the croaking of frogs,
faint and far off, and the echoes of the great clock hum in the airless
calm long after the strokes have ceased. I wonder how Blackwater Park will
look in the daytime? I don’t altogether like it by night.

12th.—A day of investigations and discoveries—a more
interesting day, for many reasons, than I had ventured to anticipate.

I began my sight-seeing, of course, with the house.

The main body of the building is of the time of that highly-overrated
woman, Queen Elizabeth. On the ground floor there are two hugely long
galleries, with low ceilings lying parallel with each other, and rendered
additionally dark and dismal by hideous family portraits—every one
of which I should like to burn. The rooms on the floor above the two
galleries are kept in tolerable repair, but are very seldom used. The
civil housekeeper, who acted as my guide, offered to show me over them,
but considerately added that she feared I should find them rather out of
order. My respect for the integrity of my own petticoats and stockings
infinitely exceeds my respect for all the Elizabethan bedrooms in the
kingdom, so I positively declined exploring the upper regions of dust and
dirt at the risk of soiling my nice clean clothes. The housekeeper said,
“I am quite of your opinion, miss,” and appeared to think me the most
sensible woman she had met with for a long time past.

So much, then, for the main building. Two wings are added at either end of
it. The half-ruined wing on the left (as you approach the house) was once
a place of residence standing by itself, and was built in the fourteenth
century. One of Sir Percival’s maternal ancestors—I don’t remember,
and don’t care which—tacked on the main building, at right angles to
it, in the aforesaid Queen Elizabeth’s time. The housekeeper told me that
the architecture of “the old wing,” both outside and inside, was
considered remarkably fine by good judges. On further investigation I
discovered that good judges could only exercise their abilities on Sir
Percival’s piece of antiquity by previously dismissing from their minds
all fear of damp, darkness, and rats. Under these circumstances, I
unhesitatingly acknowledged myself to be no judge at all, and suggested
that we should treat “the old wing” precisely as we had previously treated
the Elizabethan bedrooms. Once more the housekeeper said, “I am quite of
your opinion, miss,” and once more she looked at me with undisguised
admiration of my extraordinary common-sense.

We went next to the wing on the right, which was built, by way of
completing the wonderful architectural jumble at Blackwater Park, in the
time of George the Second.

This is the habitable part of the house, which has been repaired and
redecorated inside on Laura’s account. My two rooms, and all the good
bedrooms besides, are on the first floor, and the basement contains a
drawing-room, a dining-room, a morning-room, a library, and a pretty
little boudoir for Laura, all very nicely ornamented in the bright modern
way, and all very elegantly furnished with the delightful modern luxuries.
None of the rooms are anything like so large and airy as our rooms at
Limmeridge, but they all look pleasant to live in. I was terribly afraid,
from what I had heard of Blackwater Park, of fatiguing antique chairs, and
dismal stained glass, and musty, frouzy hangings, and all the barbarous
lumber which people born without a sense of comfort accumulate about them,
in defiance of the consideration due to the convenience of their friends.
It is an inexpressible relief to find that the nineteenth century has
invaded this strange future home of mine, and has swept the dirty “good
old times” out of the way of our daily life.

I dawdled away the morning—part of the time in the rooms downstairs,
and part out of doors in the great square which is formed by the three
sides of the house, and by the lofty iron railings and gates which protect
it in front. A large circular fish-pond with stone sides, and an
allegorical leaden monster in the middle, occupies the centre of the
square. The pond itself is full of gold and silver fish, and is encircled
by a broad belt of the softest turf I ever walked on. I loitered here on
the shady side pleasantly enough till luncheon-time, and after that took
my broad straw hat and wandered out alone in the warm lovely sunlight to
explore the grounds.

Daylight confirmed the impression which I had felt the night before, of
there being too many trees at Blackwater. The house is stifled by them.
They are, for the most part, young, and planted far too thickly. I suspect
there must have been a ruinous cutting down of timber all over the estate
before Sir Percival’s time, and an angry anxiety on the part of the next
possessor to fill up all the gaps as thickly and rapidly as possible.
After looking about me in front of the house, I observed a flower-garden
on my left hand, and walked towards it to see what I could discover in
that direction.

On a nearer view the garden proved to be small and poor and ill kept. I
left it behind me, opened a little gate in a ring fence, and found myself
in a plantation of fir-trees.

A pretty winding path, artificially made, led me on among the trees, and
my north-country experience soon informed me that I was approaching sandy,
heathy ground. After a walk of more than half a mile, I should think,
among the firs, the path took a sharp turn—the trees abruptly ceased
to appear on either side of me, and I found myself standing suddenly on
the margin of a vast open space, and looking down at the Blackwater lake
from which the house takes its name.

The ground, shelving away below me, was all sand, with a few little heathy
hillocks to break the monotony of it in certain places. The lake itself
had evidently once flowed to the spot on which I stood, and had been
gradually wasted and dried up to less than a third of its former size. I
saw its still, stagnant waters, a quarter of a mile away from me in the
hollow, separated into pools and ponds by twining reeds and rushes, and
little knolls of earth. On the farther bank from me the trees rose thickly
again, and shut out the view, and cast their black shadows on the
sluggish, shallow water. As I walked down to the lake, I saw that the
ground on its farther side was damp and marshy, overgrown with rank grass
and dismal willows. The water, which was clear enough on the open sandy
side, where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous opposite to me,
where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy banks, and the rank
overhanging thickets and tangled trees. The frogs were croaking, and the
rats were slipping in and out of the shadowy water, like live shadows
themselves, as I got nearer to the marshy side of the lake. I saw here,
lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old
overturned boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap
in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the
spot, fantastically coiled and treacherously still. Far and near the view
suggested the same dreary impressions of solitude and decay, and the
glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead seemed only to deepen and
harden the gloom and barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone. I
turned and retraced my steps to the high heathy ground, directing them a
little aside from my former path towards a shabby old wooden shed, which
stood on the outer skirt of the fir plantation, and which had hitherto
been too unimportant to share my notice with the wide, wild prospect of
the lake.

On approaching the shed I found that it had once been a boat-house, and
that an attempt had apparently been made to convert it afterwards into a
sort of rude arbour, by placing inside it a firwood seat, a few stools,
and a table. I entered the place, and sat down for a little while to rest
and get my breath again.

I had not been in the boat-house more than a minute when it struck me that
the sound of my own quick breathing was very strangely echoed by something
beneath me. I listened intently for a moment, and heard a low, thick,
sobbing breath that seemed to come from the ground under the seat which I
was occupying. My nerves are not easily shaken by trifles, but on this
occasion I started to my feet in a fright—called out—received
no answer—summoned back my recreant courage, and looked under the
seat.

There, crouched up in the farthest corner, lay the forlorn cause of my
terror, in the shape of a poor little dog—a black and white spaniel.
The creature moaned feebly when I looked at it and called to it, but never
stirred. I moved away the seat and looked closer. The poor little dog’s
eyes were glazing fast, and there were spots of blood on its glossy white
side. The misery of a weak, helpless, dumb creature is surely one of the
saddest of all the mournful sights which this world can show. I lifted the
poor dog in my arms as gently as I could, and contrived a sort of
make-shift hammock for him to lie in, by gathering up the front of my
dress all round him. In this way I took the creature, as painlessly as
possible, and as fast as possible, back to the house.

Finding no one in the hall I went up at once to my own sitting-room, made
a bed for the dog with one of my old shawls, and rang the bell. The
largest and fattest of all possible house-maids answered it, in a state of
cheerful stupidity which would have provoked the patience of a saint. The
girl’s fat, shapeless face actually stretched into a broad grin at the
sight of the wounded creature on the floor.

“What do you see there to laugh at?” I asked, as angrily as if she had
been a servant of my own. “Do you know whose dog it is?”

“No, miss, that I certainly don’t.” She stooped, and looked down at the
spaniel’s injured side—brightened suddenly with the irradiation of a
new idea—and pointing to the wound with a chuckle of satisfaction,
said, “That’s Baxter’s doings, that is.”

I was so exasperated that I could have boxed her ears. “Baxter?” I said.
“Who is the brute you call Baxter?”

The girl grinned again more cheerfully than ever. “Bless you, miss!
Baxter’s the keeper, and when he finds strange dogs hunting about, he
takes and shoots ’em. It’s keeper’s dooty, miss. I think that dog will die.
Here’s where he’s been shot, ain’t it? That’s Baxter’s doings, that is.
Baxter’s doings, miss, and Baxter’s dooty.”

I was almost wicked enough to wish that Baxter had shot the housemaid
instead of the dog. Seeing that it was quite useless to expect this
densely impenetrable personage to give me any help in relieving the
suffering creature at our feet, I told her to request the housekeeper’s
attendance with my compliments. She went out exactly as she had come in,
grinning from ear to ear. As the door closed on her she said to herself
softly, “It’s Baxter’s doings and Baxter’s dooty—that’s what it is.”

The housekeeper, a person of some education and intelligence, thoughtfully
brought upstairs with her some milk and some warm water. The instant she
saw the dog on the floor she started and changed colour.

“Why, Lord bless me,” cried the housekeeper, “that must be Mrs.
Catherick’s dog!”

“Whose?” I asked, in the utmost astonishment.

“Mrs. Catherick’s. You seem to know Mrs. Catherick, Miss Halcombe?”

“Not personally, but I have heard of her. Does she live here? Has she had
any news of her daughter?”

“No, Miss Halcombe, she came here to ask for news.”

“When?”

“Only yesterday. She said some one had reported that a stranger answering
to the description of her daughter had been seen in our neighbourhood. No
such report has reached us here, and no such report was known in the
village, when I sent to make inquiries there on Mrs. Catherick’s account.
She certainly brought this poor little dog with her when she came, and I
saw it trot out after her when she went away. I suppose the creature
strayed into the plantations, and got shot. Where did you find it, Miss
Halcombe?”

“In the old shed that looks out on the lake.”

“Ah, yes, that is the plantation side, and the poor thing dragged itself,
I suppose, to the nearest shelter, as dogs will, to die. If you can
moisten its lips with the milk, Miss Halcombe, I will wash the clotted
hair from the wound. I am very much afraid it is too late to do any good.
However, we can but try.”

Mrs. Catherick! The name still rang in my ears, as if the housekeeper had
only that moment surprised me by uttering it. While we were attending to
the dog, the words of Walter Hartright’s caution to me returned to my
memory: “If ever Anne Catherick crosses your path, make better use of the
opportunity, Miss Halcombe, than I made of it.” The finding of the wounded
spaniel had led me already to the discovery of Mrs. Catherick’s visit to
Blackwater Park, and that event might lead in its turn, to something more.
I determined to make the most of the chance which was now offered to me,
and to gain as much information as I could.

“Did you say that Mrs. Catherick lived anywhere in this neighbourhood?” I
asked.

“Oh dear, no,” said the housekeeper. “She lives at Welmingham, quite at
the other end of the county—five-and-twenty miles off, at least.”

“I suppose you have known Mrs. Catherick for some years?”

“On the contrary, Miss Halcombe, I never saw her before she came here
yesterday. I had heard of her, of course, because I had heard of Sir
Percival’s kindness in putting her daughter under medical care. Mrs.
Catherick is rather a strange person in her manners, but extremely
respectable-looking. She seemed sorely put out when she found that there
was no foundation—none, at least, that any of us could
discover—for the report of her daughter having been seen in this
neighbourhood.”

“I am rather interested about Mrs. Catherick,” I went on, continuing the
conversation as long as possible. “I wish I had arrived here soon enough
to see her yesterday. Did she stay for any length of time?”

“Yes,” said the housekeeper, “she stayed for some time; and I think she
would have remained longer, if I had not been called away to speak to a
strange gentleman—a gentleman who came to ask when Sir Percival was
expected back. Mrs. Catherick got up and left at once, when she heard the
maid tell me what the visitor’s errand was. She said to me, at parting,
that there was no need to tell Sir Percival of her coming here. I thought
that rather an odd remark to make, especially to a person in my
responsible situation.”

I thought it an odd remark too. Sir Percival had certainly led me to
believe, at Limmeridge, that the most perfect confidence existed between
himself and Mrs. Catherick. If that was the case, why should she be
anxious to have her visit at Blackwater Park kept a secret from him?

“Probably,” I said, seeing that the housekeeper expected me to give my
opinion on Mrs. Catherick’s parting words, “probably she thought the
announcement of her visit might vex Sir Percival to no purpose, by
reminding him that her lost daughter was not found yet. Did she talk much
on that subject?”

“Very little,” replied the housekeeper. “She talked principally of Sir
Percival, and asked a great many questions about where he had been
travelling, and what sort of lady his new wife was. She seemed to be more
soured and put out than distressed, by failing to find any traces of her
daughter in these parts. ‘I give her up,’ were the last words she said
that I can remember; ‘I give her up, ma’am, for lost.’ And from that she
passed at once to her questions about Lady Glyde, wanting to know if she
was a handsome, amiable lady, comely and healthy and young——Ah,
dear! I thought how it would end. Look, Miss Halcombe, the poor thing is
out of its misery at last!”

The dog was dead. It had given a faint, sobbing cry, it had suffered an
instant’s convulsion of the limbs, just as those last words, “comely and
healthy and young,” dropped from the housekeeper’s lips. The change had
happened with startling suddenness—in one moment the creature lay
lifeless under our hands.

Eight o’clock. I have just returned from dining downstairs, in solitary
state. The sunset is burning redly on the wilderness of trees that I see
from my window, and I am poring over my journal again, to calm my
impatience for the return of the travellers. They ought to have arrived,
by my calculations, before this. How still and lonely the house is in the
drowsy evening quiet! Oh me! how many minutes more before I hear the
carriage wheels and run downstairs to find myself in Laura’s arms?

The poor little dog! I wish my first day at Blackwater Park had not been
associated with death, though it is only the death of a stray animal.

Welmingham—I see, on looking back through these private pages of
mine, that Welmingham is the name of the place where Mrs. Catherick lives.
Her note is still in my possession, the note in answer to that letter
about her unhappy daughter which Sir Percival obliged me to write. One of
these days, when I can find a safe opportunity, I will take the note with
me by way of introduction, and try what I can make of Mrs. Catherick at a
personal interview. I don’t understand her wishing to conceal her visit to
this place from Sir Percival’s knowledge, and I don’t feel half so sure,
as the housekeeper seems to do, that her daughter Anne is not in the
neighbourhood after all. What would Walter Hartright have said in this
emergency? Poor, dear Hartright! I am beginning to feel the want of his
honest advice and his willing help already.

Surely I heard something. Was it a bustle of footsteps below stairs? Yes!
I hear the horses’ feet—I hear the rolling wheels——

II

June 15th.—The confusion of their arrival has had time to subside.
Two days have elapsed since the return of the travellers, and that
interval has sufficed to put the new machinery of our lives at Blackwater
Park in fair working order. I may now return to my journal, with some
little chance of being able to continue the entries in it as collectedly
as usual.

I think I must begin by putting down an odd remark which has suggested
itself to me since Laura came back.

When two members of a family or two intimate friends are separated, and
one goes abroad and one remains at home, the return of the relative or
friend who has been travelling always seems to place the relative or
friend who has been staying at home at a painful disadvantage when the two
first meet. The sudden encounter of the new thoughts and new habits
eagerly gained in the one case, with the old thoughts and old habits
passively preserved in the other, seems at first to part the sympathies of
the most loving relatives and the fondest friends, and to set a sudden
strangeness, unexpected by both and uncontrollable by both, between them
on either side. After the first happiness of my meeting with Laura was
over, after we had sat down together hand in hand to recover breath enough
and calmness enough to talk, I felt this strangeness instantly, and I
could see that she felt it too. It has partially worn away, now that we
have fallen back into most of our old habits, and it will probably
disappear before long. But it has certainly had an influence over the
first impressions that I have formed of her, now that we are living
together again—for which reason only I have thought fit to mention
it here.

She has found me unaltered, but I have found her changed.

Changed in person, and in one respect changed in character. I cannot
absolutely say that she is less beautiful than she used to be—I can
only say that she is less beautiful to me.

Others, who do not look at her with my eyes and my recollections, would
probably think her improved. There is more colour and more decision and
roundness of outline in her face than there used to be, and her figure
seems more firmly set and more sure and easy in all its movements than it
was in her maiden days. But I miss something when I look at her—something
that once belonged to the happy, innocent life of Laura Fairlie, and that
I cannot find in Lady Glyde. There was in the old times a freshness, a
softness, an ever-varying and yet ever-remaining tenderness of beauty in
her face, the charm of which it is not possible to express in words, or,
as poor Hartright used often to say, in painting either. This is gone. I
thought I saw the faint reflection of it for a moment when she turned pale
under the agitation of our sudden meeting on the evening of her return,
but it has never reappeared since. None of her letters had prepared me for
a personal change in her. On the contrary, they had led me to expect that
her marriage had left her, in appearance at least, quite unaltered.
Perhaps I read her letters wrongly in the past, and am now reading her
face wrongly in the present? No matter! Whether her beauty has gained or
whether it has lost in the last six months, the separation either way has
made her own dear self more precious to me than ever, and that is one good
result of her marriage, at any rate!

The second change, the change that I have observed in her character, has
not surprised me, because I was prepared for it in this case by the tone
of her letters. Now that she is at home again, I find her just as
unwilling to enter into any details on the subject of her married life as
I had previously found her all through the time of our separation, when we
could only communicate with each other by writing. At the first approach I
made to the forbidden topic she put her hand on my lips with a look and
gesture which touchingly, almost painfully, recalled to my memory the days
of her girlhood and the happy bygone time when there were no secrets
between us.

“Whenever you and I are together, Marian,” she said, “we shall both be
happier and easier with one another, if we accept my married life for what
it is, and say and think as little about it as possible. I would tell you
everything, darling, about myself,” she went on, nervously buckling and
unbuckling the ribbon round my waist, “if my confidences could only end
there. But they could not—they would lead me into confidences about
my husband too; and now I am married, I think I had better avoid them, for
his sake, and for your sake, and for mine. I don’t say that they would
distress you, or distress me—I wouldn’t have you think that for the
world. But—I want to be so happy, now I have got you back again, and
I want you to be so happy too——” She broke off abruptly, and
looked round the room, my own sitting-room, in which we were talking.
“Ah!” she cried, clapping her hands with a bright smile of recognition,
“another old friend found already! Your book-case, Marian—your
dear-little-shabby-old-satin-wood book-case—how glad I am you
brought it with you from Limmeridge! And the horrid heavy man’s umbrella,
that you always would walk out with when it rained! And first and foremost
of all, your own dear, dark, clever, gipsy-face, looking at me just as
usual! It is so like home again to be here. How can we make it more like
home still? I will put my father’s portrait in your room instead of in
mine—and I will keep all my little treasures from Limmeridge here—and
we will pass hours and hours every day with these four friendly walls
round us. Oh, Marian!” she said, suddenly seating herself on a footstool
at my knees, and looking up earnestly in my face, “promise you will never
marry, and leave me. It is selfish to say so, but you are so much better
off as a single woman—unless—unless you are very fond of your
husband—but you won’t be very fond of anybody but me, will you?” She
stopped again, crossed my hands on my lap, and laid her face on them.
“Have you been writing many letters, and receiving many letters lately?”
she asked, in low, suddenly-altered tones. I understood what the question
meant, but I thought it my duty not to encourage her by meeting her half
way. “Have you heard from him?” she went on, coaxing me to forgive the
more direct appeal on which she now ventured, by kissing my hands, upon
which her face still rested. “Is he well and happy, and getting on in his
profession? Has he recovered himself—and forgotten me?”

She should not have asked those questions. She should have remembered her
own resolution, on the morning when Sir Percival held her to her marriage
engagement, and when she resigned the book of Hartright’s drawings into my
hands for ever. But, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can
persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling
back? Where is the woman who has ever really torn from her heart the image
that has been once fixed in it by a true love? Books tell us that such
unearthly creatures have existed—but what does our own experience
say in answer to books?

I made no attempt to remonstrate with her: perhaps, because I sincerely
appreciated the fearless candour which let me see, what other women in her
position might have had reasons for concealing even from their dearest
friends—perhaps, because I felt, in my own heart and conscience,
that in her place I should have asked the same questions and had the same
thoughts. All I could honestly do was to reply that I had not written to
him or heard from him lately, and then to turn the conversation to less
dangerous topics.

There has been much to sadden me in our interview—my first
confidential interview with her since her return. The change which her
marriage has produced in our relations towards each other, by placing a
forbidden subject between us, for the first time in our lives; the
melancholy conviction of the dearth of all warmth of feeling, of all close
sympathy, between her husband and herself, which her own unwilling words
now force on my mind; the distressing discovery that the influence of that
ill-fated attachment still remains (no matter how innocently, how
harmlessly) rooted as deeply as ever in her heart—all these are
disclosures to sadden any woman who loves her as dearly, and feels for her
as acutely, as I do.

There is only one consolation to set against them—a consolation that
ought to comfort me, and that does comfort me. All the graces and
gentleness of her character—all the frank affection of her nature—all
the sweet, simple, womanly charms which used to make her the darling and
delight of every one who approached her, have come back to me with
herself. Of my other impressions I am sometimes a little inclined to
doubt. Of this last, best, happiest of all impressions, I grow more and
more certain every hour in the day.

Let me turn, now, from her to her travelling companions. Her husband must
engage my attention first. What have I observed in Sir Percival, since his
return, to improve my opinion of him?

I can hardly say. Small vexations and annoyances seem to have beset him
since he came back, and no man, under those circumstances, is ever
presented at his best. He looks, as I think, thinner than he was when he
left England. His wearisome cough and his comfortless restlessness have
certainly increased. His manner—at least his manner towards me—is
much more abrupt than it used to be. He greeted me, on the evening of his
return, with little or nothing of the ceremony and civility of former
times—no polite speeches of welcome—no appearance of
extraordinary gratification at seeing me—nothing but a short shake
of the hand, and a sharp “How-d’ye-do, Miss Halcombe—glad to see you
again.” He seemed to accept me as one of the necessary fixtures of
Blackwater Park, to be satisfied at finding me established in my proper
place, and then to pass me over altogether.

Most men show something of their disposition in their own houses, which
they have concealed elsewhere, and Sir Percival has already displayed a
mania for order and regularity, which is quite a new revelation of him, so
far as my previous knowledge of his character is concerned. If I take a
book from the library and leave it on the table, he follows me and puts it
back again. If I rise from a chair, and let it remain where I have been
sitting, he carefully restores it to its proper place against the wall. He
picks up stray flower-blossoms from the carpet, and mutters to himself as
discontentedly as if they were hot cinders burning holes in it, and he
storms at the servants if there is a crease in the tablecloth, or a knife
missing from its place at the dinner-table, as fiercely as if they had
personally insulted him.

I have already referred to the small annoyances which appear to have
troubled him since his return. Much of the alteration for the worse which
I have noticed in him may be due to these. I try to persuade myself that
it is so, because I am anxious not to be disheartened already about the
future. It is certainly trying to any man’s temper to be met by a vexation
the moment he sets foot in his own house again, after a long absence, and
this annoying circumstance did really happen to Sir Percival in my
presence.

On the evening of their arrival the housekeeper followed me into the hall
to receive her master and mistress and their guests. The instant he saw
her, Sir Percival asked if any one had called lately. The housekeeper
mentioned to him, in reply, what she had previously mentioned to me, the
visit of the strange gentleman to make inquiries about the time of her
master’s return. He asked immediately for the gentleman’s name. No name
had been left. The gentleman’s business? No business had been mentioned.
What was the gentleman like? The housekeeper tried to describe him, but
failed to distinguish the nameless visitor by any personal peculiarity
which her master could recognise. Sir Percival frowned, stamped angrily on
the floor, and walked on into the house, taking no notice of anybody. Why
he should have been so discomposed by a trifle I cannot say—but he
was seriously discomposed, beyond all doubt.

Upon the whole, it will be best, perhaps, if I abstain from forming a
decisive opinion of his manners, language, and conduct in his own house,
until time has enabled him to shake off the anxieties, whatever they may
be, which now evidently troubled his mind in secret. I will turn over to a
new page, and my pen shall let Laura’s husband alone for the present.

The two guests—the Count and Countess Fosco—come next in my
catalogue. I will dispose of the Countess first, so as to have done with
the woman as soon as possible.

Laura was certainly not chargeable with any exaggeration, in writing me
word that I should hardly recognise her aunt again when we met. Never
before have I beheld such a change produced in a woman by her marriage as
has been produced in Madame Fosco.

As Eleanor Fairlie (aged seven-and-thirty), she was always talking
pretentious nonsense, and always worrying the unfortunate men with every
small exaction which a vain and foolish woman can impose on long-suffering
male humanity. As Madame Fosco (aged three-and-forty), she sits for hours
together without saying a word, frozen up in the strangest manner in
herself. The hideously ridiculous love-locks which used to hang on either
side of her face are now replaced by stiff little rows of very short
curls, of the sort one sees in old-fashioned wigs. A plain, matronly cap
covers her head, and makes her look, for the first time in her life since
I remember her, like a decent woman. Nobody (putting her husband out of
the question, of course) now sees in her, what everybody once saw—I
mean the structure of the female skeleton, in the upper regions of the
collar-bones and the shoulder-blades. Clad in quiet black or grey gowns,
made high round the throat—dresses that she would have laughed at,
or screamed at, as the whim of the moment inclined her, in her maiden days—she
sits speechless in corners; her dry white hands (so dry that the pores of
her skin look chalky) incessantly engaged, either in monotonous embroidery
work or in rolling up endless cigarettes for the Count’s own particular
smoking. On the few occasions when her cold blue eyes are off her work,
they are generally turned on her husband, with the look of mute submissive
inquiry which we are all familiar with in the eyes of a faithful dog. The
only approach to an inward thaw which I have yet detected under her outer
covering of icy constraint, has betrayed itself, once or twice, in the
form of a suppressed tigerish jealousy of any woman in the house (the
maids included) to whom the Count speaks, or on whom he looks with
anything approaching to special interest or attention. Except in this one
particular, she is always, morning, noon, and night, indoors and out, fair
weather or foul, as cold as a statue, and as impenetrable as the stone out
of which it is cut. For the common purposes of society the extraordinary
change thus produced in her is, beyond all doubt, a change for the better,
seeing that it has transformed her into a civil, silent, unobtrusive
woman, who is never in the way. How far she is really reformed or
deteriorated in her secret self, is another question. I have once or twice
seen sudden changes of expression on her pinched lips, and heard sudden
inflexions of tone in her calm voice, which have led me to suspect that
her present state of suppression may have sealed up something dangerous in
her nature, which used to evaporate harmlessly in the freedom of her
former life. It is quite possible that I may be altogether wrong in this
idea. My own impression, however, is, that I am right. Time will show.

And the magician who has wrought this wonderful transformation—the
foreign husband who has tamed this once wayward English woman till her own
relations hardly know her again—the Count himself? What of the
Count?

This in two words: He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had
married a tigress, instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If
he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes, as his wife
does—I should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she holds
hers.

I am almost afraid to confess it, even to these secret pages. The man has
interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short
days he has made his way straight into my favourable estimation, and how
he has worked the miracle is more than I can tell.

It absolutely startles me, now he is in my mind, to find how plainly I see
him!—how much more plainly than I see Sir Percival, or Mr. Fairlie,
or Walter Hartright, or any other absent person of whom I think, with the
one exception of Laura herself! I can hear his voice, as if he was
speaking at this moment. I know what his conversation was yesterday, as
well as if I was hearing it now. How am I to describe him? There are
peculiarities in his personal appearance, his habits, and his amusements,
which I should blame in the boldest terms, or ridicule in the most
merciless manner, if I had seen them in another man. What is it that makes
me unable to blame them, or to ridicule them in him?

For example, he is immensely fat. Before this time I have always
especially disliked corpulent humanity. I have always maintained that the
popular notion of connecting excessive grossness of size and excessive
good-humour as inseparable allies was equivalent to declaring, either that
no people but amiable people ever get fat, or that the accidental addition
of so many pounds of flesh has a directly favourable influence over the
disposition of the person on whose body they accumulate. I have invariably
combated both these absurd assertions by quoting examples of fat people
who were as mean, vicious, and cruel as the leanest and the worst of their
neighbours. I have asked whether Henry the Eighth was an amiable
character? Whether Pope Alexander the Sixth was a good man? Whether Mr.
Murderer and Mrs. Murderess Manning were not both unusually stout people?
Whether hired nurses, proverbially as cruel a set of women as are to be
found in all England, were not, for the most part, also as fat a set of
women as are to be found in all England?—and so on, through dozens
of other examples, modern and ancient, native and foreign, high and low.
Holding these strong opinions on the subject with might and main as I do
at this moment, here, nevertheless, is Count Fosco, as fat as Henry the
Eighth himself, established in my favour, at one day’s notice, without let
or hindrance from his own odious corpulence. Marvellous indeed!

Is it his face that has recommended him?

It may be his face. He is a most remarkable likeness, on a large scale, of
the great Napoleon. His features have Napoleon’s magnificent regularity—his
expression recalls the grandly calm, immovable power of the Great
Soldier’s face. This striking resemblance certainly impressed me, to begin
with; but there is something in him besides the resemblance, which has
impressed me more. I think the influence I am now trying to find is in his
eyes. They are the most unfathomable grey eyes I ever saw, and they have
at times a cold, clear, beautiful, irresistible glitter in them which
forces me to look at him, and yet causes me sensations, when I do look,
which I would rather not feel. Other parts of his face and head have their
strange peculiarities. His complexion, for instance, has a singular
sallow-fairness, so much at variance with the dark-brown colour of his
hair, that I suspect the hair of being a wig, and his face, closely shaven
all over, is smoother and freer from all marks and wrinkles than mine,
though (according to Sir Percival’s account of him) he is close on sixty
years of age. But these are not the prominent personal characteristics
which distinguish him, to my mind, from all the other men I have ever
seen. The marked peculiarity which singles him out from the rank and file
of humanity lies entirely, so far as I can tell at present, in the
extraordinary expression and extraordinary power of his eyes.

His manner and his command of our language may also have assisted him, in
some degree, to establish himself in my good opinion. He has that quiet
deference, that look of pleased, attentive interest in listening to a
woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice in speaking to a woman,
which, say what we may, we can none of us resist. Here, too, his unusual
command of the English language necessarily helps him. I had often heard
of the extraordinary aptitude which many Italians show in mastering our
strong, hard, Northern speech; but, until I saw Count Fosco, I had never
supposed it possible that any foreigner could have spoken English as he
speaks it. There are times when it is almost impossible to detect by his
accent that he is not a countryman of our own, and as for fluency, there
are very few born Englishmen who can talk with as few stoppages and
repetitions as the Count. He may construct his sentences more or less in
the foreign way, but I have never yet heard him use a wrong expression, or
hesitate for a moment in his choice of a word.

All the smallest characteristics of this strange man have something
strikingly original and perplexingly contradictory in them. Fat as he is
and old as he is, his movements are astonishingly light and easy. He is as
noiseless in a room as any of us women, and more than that, with all his
look of unmistakable mental firmness and power, he is as nervously
sensitive as the weakest of us. He starts at chance noises as inveterately
as Laura herself. He winced and shuddered yesterday, when Sir Percival
beat one of the spaniels, so that I felt ashamed of my own want of
tenderness and sensibility by comparison with the Count.

The relation of this last incident reminds me of one of his most curious
peculiarities, which I have not yet mentioned—his extraordinary
fondness for pet animals.

Some of these he has left on the Continent, but he has brought with him to
this house a cockatoo, two canary-birds, and a whole family of white mice.
He attends to all the necessities of these strange favourites himself, and
he has taught the creatures to be surprisingly fond of him and familiar
with him. The cockatoo, a most vicious and treacherous bird towards every
one else, absolutely seems to love him. When he lets it out of its cage,
it hops on to his knee, and claws its way up his great big body, and rubs
its top-knot against his sallow double chin in the most caressing manner
imaginable. He has only to set the doors of the canaries’ cages open, and
to call them, and the pretty little cleverly trained creatures perch
fearlessly on his hand, mount his fat outstretched fingers one by one,
when he tells them to “go upstairs,” and sing together as if they would
burst their throats with delight when they get to the top finger. His
white mice live in a little pagoda of gaily-painted wirework, designed and
made by himself. They are almost as tame as the canaries, and they are
perpetually let out like the canaries. They crawl all over him, popping in
and out of his waistcoat, and sitting in couples, white as snow, on his
capacious shoulders. He seems to be even fonder of his mice than of his
other pets, smiles at them, and kisses them, and calls them by all sorts
of endearing names. If it be possible to suppose an Englishman with any
taste for such childish interests and amusements as these, that Englishman
would certainly feel rather ashamed of them, and would be anxious to
apologise for them, in the company of grown-up people. But the Count,
apparently, sees nothing ridiculous in the amazing contrast between his
colossal self and his frail little pets. He would blandly kiss his white
mice and twitter to his canary-birds amid an assembly of English
fox-hunters, and would only pity them as barbarians when they were all
laughing their loudest at him.

It seems hardly credible while I am writing it down, but it is certainly
true, that this same man, who has all the fondness of an old maid for his
cockatoo, and all the small dexterities of an organ-boy in managing his
white mice, can talk, when anything happens to rouse him, with a daring
independence of thought, a knowledge of books in every language, and an
experience of society in half the capitals of Europe, which would make him
the prominent personage of any assembly in the civilised world. This
trainer of canary-birds, this architect of a pagoda for white mice, is (as
Sir Percival himself has told me) one of the first experimental chemists
living, and has discovered, among other wonderful inventions, a means of
petrifying the body after death, so as to preserve it, as hard as marble,
to the end of time. This fat, indolent, elderly man, whose nerves are so
finely strung that he starts at chance noises, and winces when he sees a
house-spaniel get a whipping, went into the stable-yard on the morning
after his arrival, and put his hand on the head of a chained bloodhound—a
beast so savage that the very groom who feeds him keeps out of his reach.
His wife and I were present, and I shall not forget the scene that
followed, short as it was.

“Mind that dog, sir,” said the groom; “he flies at everybody!” “He does
that, my friend,” replied the Count quietly, “because everybody is afraid
of him. Let us see if he flies at me.” And he laid his plump,
yellow-white fingers, on which the canary-birds had been perching ten
minutes before, upon the formidable brute’s head, and looked him straight
in the eyes. “You big dogs are all cowards,” he said, addressing the
animal contemptuously, with his face and the dog’s within an inch of each
other. “You would kill a poor cat, you infernal coward. You would fly at a
starving beggar, you infernal coward. Anything that you can surprise
unawares—anything that is afraid of your big body, and your wicked
white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you
like to fly at. You could throttle me at this moment, you mean, miserable
bully, and you daren’t so much as look me in the face, because I’m not
afraid of you. Will you think better of it, and try your teeth in my fat
neck? Bah! not you!” He turned away, laughing at the astonishment of the
men in the yard, and the dog crept back meekly to his kennel. “Ah! my nice
waistcoat!” he said pathetically. “I am sorry I came here. Some of that
brute’s slobber has got on my pretty clean waistcoat.” Those words express
another of his incomprehensible oddities. He is as fond of fine clothes as
the veriest fool in existence, and has appeared in four magnificent
waistcoats already—all of light garish colours, and all immensely
large even for him—in the two days of his residence at Blackwater
Park.

His tact and cleverness in small things are quite as noticeable as the
singular inconsistencies in his character, and the childish triviality of
his ordinary tastes and pursuits.

I can see already that he means to live on excellent terms with all of us
during the period of his sojourn in this place. He has evidently
discovered that Laura secretly dislikes him (she confessed as much to me
when I pressed her on the subject)—but he has also found out that
she is extravagantly fond of flowers. Whenever she wants a nosegay he has
got one to give her, gathered and arranged by himself, and greatly to my
amusement, he is always cunningly provided with a duplicate, composed of
exactly the same flowers, grouped in exactly the same way, to appease his
icily jealous wife before she can so much as think herself aggrieved. His
management of the Countess (in public) is a sight to see. He bows to her,
he habitually addresses her as “my angel,” he carries his canaries to pay
her little visits on his fingers and to sing to her, he kisses her hand
when she gives him his cigarettes; he presents her with sugar-plums in
return, which he puts into her mouth playfully, from a box in his pocket.
The rod of iron with which he rules her never appears in company—it
is a private rod, and is always kept upstairs.

His method of recommending himself to me is entirely different. He
flatters my vanity by talking to me as seriously and sensibly as if I was
a man. Yes! I can find him out when I am away from him—I know he
flatters my vanity, when I think of him up here in my own room—and
yet, when I go downstairs, and get into his company again, he will blind
me again, and I shall be flattered again, just as if I had never found him
out at all! He can manage me as he manages his wife and Laura, as he
managed the bloodhound in the stable-yard, as he manages Sir Percival
himself, every hour in the day. “My good Percival! how I like your rough
English humour!”—“My good Percival! how I enjoy your solid English
sense!” He puts the rudest remarks Sir Percival can make on his effeminate
tastes and amusements quietly away from him in that manner—always
calling the baronet by his Christian name, smiling at him with the calmest
superiority, patting him on the shoulder, and bearing with him
benignantly, as a good-humoured father bears with a wayward son.

The interest which I really cannot help feeling in this strangely original
man has led me to question Sir Percival about his past life.

Sir Percival either knows little, or will tell me little, about it. He and
the Count first met many years ago, at Rome, under the dangerous
circumstances to which I have alluded elsewhere. Since that time they have
been perpetually together in London, in Paris, and in Vienna—but
never in Italy again; the Count having, oddly enough, not crossed the
frontiers of his native country for years past. Perhaps he has been made
the victim of some political persecution? At all events, he seems to be
patriotically anxious not to lose sight of any of his own countrymen who
may happen to be in England. On the evening of his arrival he asked how
far we were from the nearest town, and whether we knew of any Italian
gentlemen who might happen to be settled there. He is certainly in
correspondence with people on the Continent, for his letters have all
sorts of odd stamps on them, and I saw one for him this morning, waiting
in his place at the breakfast-table, with a huge, official-looking seal on
it. Perhaps he is in correspondence with his government? And yet, that is
hardly to be reconciled either with my other idea that he may be a
political exile.

How much I seem to have written about Count Fosco! And what does it all
amount to?—as poor, dear Mr. Gilmore would ask, in his impenetrable
business-like way I can only repeat that I do assuredly feel, even on this
short acquaintance, a strange, half-willing, half-unwilling liking for the
Count. He seems to have established over me the same sort of ascendency
which he has evidently gained over Sir Percival. Free, and even rude, as
he may occasionally be in his manner towards his fat friend, Sir Percival
is nevertheless afraid, as I can plainly see, of giving any serious
offence to the Count. I wonder whether I am afraid too? I certainly never
saw a man, in all my experience, whom I should be so sorry to have for an
enemy. Is this because I like him, or because I am afraid of him? Chi
sa?—as Count Fosco might say in his own language. Who knows?

June 16th.—Something to chronicle to-day besides my own ideas and
impressions. A visitor has arrived—quite unknown to Laura and to me,
and apparently quite unexpected by Sir Percival.

We were all at lunch, in the room with the new French windows that open
into the verandah, and the Count (who devours pastry as I have never yet
seen it devoured by any human beings but girls at boarding-schools) had
just amused us by asking gravely for his fourth tart—when the
servant entered to announce the visitor.

“Mr. Merriman has just come, Sir Percival, and wishes to see you
immediately.”

Sir Percival started, and looked at the man with an expression of angry
alarm.

“Mr. Merriman!” he repeated, as if he thought his own ears must have
deceived him.

“Yes, Sir Percival—Mr. Merriman, from London.”

“Where is he?”

“In the library, Sir Percival.”

He left the table the instant the last answer was given, and hurried out
of the room without saying a word to any of us.

“Who is Mr. Merriman?” asked Laura, appealing to me.

“I have not the least idea,” was all I could say in reply.

The Count had finished his fourth tart, and had gone to a side-table to
look after his vicious cockatoo. He turned round to us with the bird
perched on his shoulder.

“Mr. Merriman is Sir Percival’s solicitor,” he said quietly.

Sir Percival’s solicitor. It was a perfectly straightforward answer to
Laura’s question, and yet, under the circumstances, it was not
satisfactory. If Mr. Merriman had been specially sent for by his client,
there would have been nothing very wonderful in his leaving town to obey
the summons. But when a lawyer travels from London to Hampshire without
being sent for, and when his arrival at a gentleman’s house seriously
startles the gentleman himself, it may be safely taken for granted that
the legal visitor is the bearer of some very important and very unexpected
news—news which may be either very good or very bad, but which
cannot, in either case, be of the common everyday kind.

Laura and I sat silent at the table for a quarter of an hour or more,
wondering uneasily what had happened, and waiting for the chance of Sir
Percival’s speedy return. There were no signs of his return, and we rose
to leave the room.

The Count, attentive as usual, advanced from the corner in which he had
been feeding his cockatoo, with the bird still perched on his shoulder,
and opened the door for us. Laura and Madame Fosco went out first. Just as
I was on the point of following them he made a sign with his hand, and
spoke to me, before I passed him, in the oddest manner.

“Yes,” he said, quietly answering the unexpressed idea at that moment in
my mind, as if I had plainly confided it to him in so many words—“yes,
Miss Halcombe, something has happened.”

I was on the point of answering, “I never said so,” but the vicious
cockatoo ruffled his clipped wings and gave a screech that set all my
nerves on edge in an instant, and made me only too glad to get out of the
room.

I joined Laura at the foot of the stairs. The thought in her mind was the
same as the thought in mine, which Count Fosco had surprised, and when she
spoke her words were almost the echo of his. She, too, said to me secretly
that she was afraid something had happened.

III

June 16th.—I have a few lines more to add to this day’s entry before
I go to bed to-night.

About two hours after Sir Percival rose from the luncheon-table to receive
his solicitor, Mr. Merriman, in the library, I left my room alone to take
a walk in the plantations. Just as I was at the end of the landing the
library door opened and the two gentlemen came out. Thinking it best not
to disturb them by appearing on the stairs, I resolved to defer going down
till they had crossed the hall. Although they spoke to each other in
guarded tones, their words were pronounced with sufficient distinctness of
utterance to reach my ears.

“Make your mind easy, Sir Percival,” I heard the lawyer say; “it all rests
with Lady Glyde.”

I had turned to go back to my own room for a minute or two, but the sound
of Laura’s name on the lips of a stranger stopped me instantly. I daresay
it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen, but where is the
woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the
abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and
when her affections, and the interests which grow out of them, point the
other?

I listened—and under similar circumstances I would listen again—yes!
with my ear at the keyhole, if I could not possibly manage it in any other
way.

“You quite understand, Sir Percival,” the lawyer went on. “Lady Glyde is
to sign her name in the presence of a witness—or of two witnesses,
if you wish to be particularly careful—and is then to put her finger
on the seal and say, ‘I deliver this as my act and deed.’ If that is done
in a week’s time the arrangement will be perfectly successful, and the
anxiety will be all over. If not——”

“What do you mean by ‘if not’?” asked Sir Percival angrily. “If the thing
must be done it shall be done. I promise you that,
Merriman.”

“Just so, Sir Percival—just so; but there are two alternatives in
all transactions, and we lawyers like to look both of them in the face
boldly. If through any extraordinary circumstance the arrangement should
not be made, I think I may be able to get the parties to accept bills at
three months. But how the money is to be raised when the bills fall due——”

“Damn the bills! The money is only to be got in one way, and in that way,
I tell you again, it shall be got. Take a glass of wine, Merriman,
before you go.”

“Much obliged, Sir Percival; I have not a moment to lose if I am to catch
the up-train. You will let me know as soon as the arrangement is complete?
and you will not forget the caution I recommended——”

“Of course I won’t. There’s the dog-cart at the door for you. My groom
will get you to the station in no time. Benjamin, drive like mad! Jump in.
If Mr. Merriman misses the train you lose your place. Hold fast, Merriman,
and if you are upset trust to the devil to save his own.” With that
parting benediction the baronet turned about and walked back to the
library.

I had not heard much, but the little that had reached my ears was enough
to make me feel uneasy. The “something” that “had happened” was but too
plainly a serious money embarrassment, and Sir Percival’s relief from it
depended upon Laura. The prospect of seeing her involved in her husband’s
secret difficulties filled me with dismay, exaggerated, no doubt, by my
ignorance of business and my settled distrust of Sir Percival. Instead of
going out, as I proposed, I went back immediately to Laura’s room to tell
her what I had heard.

She received my bad news so composedly as to surprise me. She evidently
knows more of her husband’s character and her husband’s embarrassments
than I have suspected up to this time.

“I feared as much,” she said, “when I heard of that strange gentleman who
called, and declined to leave his name.”

“Who do you think the gentleman was, then?” I asked.

“Some person who has heavy claims on Sir Percival,” she answered, “and who
has been the cause of Mr. Merriman’s visit here to-day.”

“Do you know anything about those claims?”

“No, I know no particulars.”

“You will sign nothing, Laura, without first looking at it?”

“Certainly not, Marian. Whatever I can harmlessly and honestly do to help
him I will do—for the sake of making your life and mine, love, as
easy and as happy as possible. But I will do nothing ignorantly, which we
might, one day, have reason to feel ashamed of. Let us say no more about
it now. You have got your hat on—suppose we go and dream away the
afternoon in the grounds?”

On leaving the house we directed our steps to the nearest shade.

As we passed an open space among the trees in front of the house, there
was Count Fosco, slowly walking backwards and forwards on the grass,
sunning himself in the full blaze of the hot June afternoon. He had a
broad straw hat on, with a violet-coloured ribbon round it. A blue blouse,
with profuse white fancy-work over the bosom, covered his prodigious body,
and was girt about the place where his waist might once have been with a
broad scarlet leather belt. Nankeen trousers, displaying more white
fancy-work over the ankles, and purple morocco slippers, adorned his lower
extremities. He was singing Figaro’s famous song in the Barber of Seville,
with that crisply fluent vocalisation which is never heard from any other
than an Italian throat, accompanying himself on the concertina, which he
played with ecstatic throwings-up of his arms, and graceful twistings and
turnings of his head, like a fat St. Cecilia masquerading in male attire.
“Figaro qua! Figaro la! Figaro su! Figaro giu!” sang the Count, jauntily
tossing up the concertina at arm’s length, and bowing to us, on one side
of the instrument, with the airy grace and elegance of Figaro himself at
twenty years of age.

“Take my word for it, Laura, that man knows something of Sir Percival’s
embarrassments,” I said, as we returned the Count’s salutation from a safe
distance.

“What makes you think that?” she asked.

“How should he have known, otherwise, that Mr. Merriman was Sir Percival’s
solicitor?” I rejoined. “Besides, when I followed you out of the
luncheon-room, he told me, without a single word of inquiry on my part,
that something had happened. Depend upon it, he knows more than we do.”

“Don’t ask him any questions if he does. Don’t take him into our
confidence!”

“You seem to dislike him, Laura, in a very determined manner. What has he
said or done to justify you?”

“Nothing, Marian. On the contrary, he was all kindness and attention on
our journey home, and he several times checked Sir Percival’s outbreaks of
temper, in the most considerate manner towards me. Perhaps I
dislike him because he has so much more power over my husband than I have.
Perhaps it hurts my pride to be under any obligations to his interference.
All I know is, that I do dislike him.”

The rest of the day and evening passed quietly enough. The Count and I
played at chess. For the first two games he politely allowed me to conquer
him, and then, when he saw that I had found him out, begged my pardon, and
at the third game checkmated me in ten minutes. Sir Percival never once
referred, all through the evening, to the lawyer’s visit. But either that
event, or something else, had produced a singular alteration for the
better in him. He was as polite and agreeable to all of us, as he used to
be in the days of his probation at Limmeridge, and he was so amazingly
attentive and kind to his wife, that even icy Madame Fosco was roused into
looking at him with a grave surprise. What does this mean? I think I can
guess—I am afraid Laura can guess—and I am sure Count Fosco
knows. I caught Sir Percival looking at him for approval more than once in
the course of the evening.

June 17th.—A day of events. I most fervently hope I may not have to
add, a day of disasters as well.

Sir Percival was as silent at breakfast as he had been the evening before,
on the subject of the mysterious “arrangement” (as the lawyer called it)
which is hanging over our heads. An hour afterwards, however, he suddenly
entered the morning-room, where his wife and I were waiting, with our hats
on, for Madame Fosco to join us, and inquired for the Count.

“We expect to see him here directly,” I said.

“The fact is,” Sir Percival went on, walking nervously about the room, “I
want Fosco and his wife in the library, for a mere business formality, and
I want you there, Laura, for a minute too.” He stopped, and appeared to
notice, for the first time, that we were in our walking costume. “Have you
just come in?” he asked, “or were you just going out?”

“We were all thinking of going to the lake this morning,” said Laura. “But
if you have any other arrangement to propose——”

“No, no,” he answered hastily. “My arrangement can wait. After lunch will
do as well for it as after breakfast. All going to the lake, eh? A good
idea. Let’s have an idle morning—I’ll be one of the party.”

There was no mistaking his manner, even if it had been possible to mistake
the uncharacteristic readiness which his words expressed, to submit his
own plans and projects to the convenience of others. He was evidently
relieved at finding any excuse for delaying the business formality in the
library, to which his own words had referred. My heart sank within me as I
drew the inevitable inference.

The Count and his wife joined us at that moment. The lady had her
husband’s embroidered tobacco-pouch, and her store of paper in her hand,
for the manufacture of the eternal cigarettes. The gentleman, dressed, as
usual, in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little pagoda-cage,
with his darling white mice in it, and smiled on them, and on us, with a
bland amiability which it was impossible to resist.

“With your kind permission,” said the Count, “I will take my small family
here—my poor-little-harmless-pretty-Mouseys, out for an airing along
with us. There are dogs about the house, and shall I leave my forlorn
white children at the mercies of the dogs? Ah, never!”

He chirruped paternally at his small white children through the bars of
the pagoda, and we all left the house for the lake.

In the plantation Sir Percival strayed away from us. It seems to be part
of his restless disposition always to separate himself from his companions
on these occasions, and always to occupy himself when he is alone in
cutting new walking-sticks for his own use. The mere act of cutting and
lopping at hazard appears to please him. He has filled the house with
walking-sticks of his own making, not one of which he ever takes up for a
second time. When they have been once used his interest in them is all
exhausted, and he thinks of nothing but going on and making more.

At the old boat-house he joined us again. I will put down the conversation
that ensued when we were all settled in our places exactly as it passed.
It is an important conversation, so far as I am concerned, for it has
seriously disposed me to distrust the influence which Count Fosco has
exercised over my thoughts and feelings, and to resist it for the future
as resolutely as I can.

The boat-house was large enough to hold us all, but Sir Percival remained
outside trimming the last new stick with his pocket-axe. We three women
found plenty of room on the large seat. Laura took her work, and Madame
Fosco began her cigarettes. I, as usual, had nothing to do. My hands
always were, and always will be, as awkward as a man’s. The Count
good-humouredly took a stool many sizes too small for him, and balanced
himself on it with his back against the side of the shed, which creaked
and groaned under his weight. He put the pagoda-cage on his lap, and let
out the mice to crawl over him as usual. They are pretty, innocent-looking
little creatures, but the sight of them creeping about a man’s body is for
some reason not pleasant to me. It excites a strange responsive creeping
in my own nerves, and suggests hideous ideas of men dying in prison with
the crawling creatures of the dungeon preying on them undisturbed.

The morning was windy and cloudy, and the rapid alternations of shadow and
sunlight over the waste of the lake made the view look doubly wild, weird,
and gloomy.

“Some people call that picturesque,” said Sir Percival, pointing over the
wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. “I call it a blot on a
gentleman’s property. In my great-grandfather’s time the lake flowed to
this place. Look at it now! It is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is
all puddles and pools. I wish I could afford to drain it, and plant it all
over. My bailiff (a superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake
has a curse on it, like the Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco? It looks
just the place for a murder, doesn’t it?”

“My good Percival,” remonstrated the Count. “What is your solid English
sense thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide the body, and there is
sand everywhere to print off the murderer’s footsteps. It is, upon the
whole, the very worst place for a murder that I ever set my eyes on.”

“Humbug!” said Sir Percival, cutting away fiercely at his stick. “You know
what I mean. The dreary scenery, the lonely situation. If you choose to
understand me, you can—if you don’t choose, I am not going to
trouble myself to explain my meaning.”

“And why not,” asked the Count, “when your meaning can be explained by
anybody in two words? If a fool was going to commit a murder, your lake is
the first place he would choose for it. If a wise man was going to commit
a murder, your lake is the last place he would choose for it. Is that your
meaning? If it is, there is your explanation for you ready made. Take it,
Percival, with your good Fosco’s blessing.”

Laura looked at the Count with her dislike for him appearing a little too
plainly in her face. He was so busy with his mice that he did not notice
her.

“I am sorry to hear the lake-view connected with anything so horrible as
the idea of murder,” she said. “And if Count Fosco must divide murderers
into classes, I think he has been very unfortunate in his choice of
expressions. To describe them as fools only seems like treating them with
an indulgence to which they have no claim. And to describe them as wise
men sounds to me like a downright contradiction in terms. I have always
heard that truly wise men are truly good men, and have a horror of crime.”

“My dear lady,” said the Count, “those are admirable sentiments, and I
have seen them stated at the tops of copy-books.” He lifted one of the
white mice in the palm of his hand, and spoke to it in his whimsical way.
“My pretty little smooth white rascal,” he said, “here is a moral lesson
for you. A truly wise mouse is a truly good mouse. Mention that, if you
please, to your companions, and never gnaw at the bars of your cage again
as long as you live.”

“It is easy to turn everything into ridicule,” said Laura resolutely; “but
you will not find it quite so easy, Count Fosco, to give me an instance of
a wise man who has been a great criminal.”

The Count shrugged his huge shoulders, and smiled on Laura in the
friendliest manner.

“Most true!” he said. “The fool’s crime is the crime that is found out,
and the wise man’s crime is the crime that is not found out. If I
could give you an instance, it would not be the instance of a wise man.
Dear Lady Glyde, your sound English common sense has been too much for me.
It is checkmate for me this time, Miss Halcombe—ha?”

“Stand to your guns, Laura,” sneered Sir Percival, who had been listening
in his place at the door. “Tell him next, that crimes cause their own
detection. There’s another bit of copy-book morality for you, Fosco.
Crimes cause their own detection. What infernal humbug!”

“I believe it to be true,” said Laura quietly.

Sir Percival burst out laughing, so violently, so outrageously, that he
quite startled us all—the Count more than any of us.

“I believe it too,” I said, coming to Laura’s rescue.

Sir Percival, who had been unaccountably amused at his wife’s remark, was
just as unaccountably irritated by mine. He struck the new stick savagely
on the sand, and walked away from us.

“Poor dear Percival!” cried Count Fosco, looking after him gaily, “he is
the victim of English spleen. But, my dear Miss Halcombe, my dear Lady
Glyde, do you really believe that crimes cause their own detection? And
you, my angel,” he continued, turning to his wife, who had not uttered a
word yet, “do you think so too?”

“I wait to be instructed,” replied the Countess, in tones of freezing
reproof, intended for Laura and me, “before I venture on giving my opinion
in the presence of well-informed men.”

“Do you, indeed?” I said. “I remember the time, Countess, when you
advocated the Rights of Women, and freedom of female opinion was one of
them.”

“What is your view of the subject, Count?” asked Madame Fosco, calmly
proceeding with her cigarettes, and not taking the least notice of me.

The Count stroked one of his white mice reflectively with his chubby
little finger before he answered.

“It is truly wonderful,” he said, “how easily Society can console itself
for the worst of its shortcomings with a little bit of clap-trap. The
machinery it has set up for the detection of crime is miserably
ineffective—and yet only invent a moral epigram, saying that it
works well, and you blind everybody to its blunders from that moment.
Crimes cause their own detection, do they? And murder will out (another
moral epigram), will it? Ask Coroners who sit at inquests in large towns
if that is true, Lady Glyde. Ask secretaries of life-assurance companies
if that is true, Miss Halcombe. Read your own public journals. In the few
cases that get into the newspapers, are there not instances of slain
bodies found, and no murderers ever discovered? Multiply the cases that
are reported by the cases that are not reported, and the bodies
that are found by the bodies that are not found, and what
conclusion do you come to? This. That there are foolish criminals who are
discovered, and wise criminals who escape. The hiding of a crime, or the
detection of a crime, what is it? A trial of skill between the police on
one side, and the individual on the other. When the criminal is a brutal,
ignorant fool, the police in nine cases out of ten win. When the criminal
is a resolute, educated, highly-intelligent man, the police in nine cases
out of ten lose. If the police win, you generally hear all about it. If
the police lose, you generally hear nothing. And on this tottering
foundation you build up your comfortable moral maxim that Crime causes its
own detection! Yes—all the crime you know of. And what of the
rest?”

“Devilish true, and very well put,” cried a voice at the entrance of the
boat-house. Sir Percival had recovered his equanimity, and had come back
while we were listening to the Count.

“Some of it may be true,” I said, “and all of it may be very well put. But
I don’t see why Count Fosco should celebrate the victory of the criminal
over Society with so much exultation, or why you, Sir Percival, should
applaud him so loudly for doing it.”

“Do you hear that, Fosco?” asked Sir Percival. “Take my advice, and make
your peace with your audience. Tell them virtue’s a fine thing—they
like that, I can promise you.”

The Count laughed inwardly and silently, and two of the white mice in his
waistcoat, alarmed by the internal convulsion going on beneath them,
darted out in a violent hurry, and scrambled into their cage again.

“The ladies, my good Percival, shall tell me about virtue,” he
said. “They are better authorities than I am, for they know what virtue
is, and I don’t.”

“You hear him?” said Sir Percival. “Isn’t it awful?”

“It is true,” said the Count quietly. “I am a citizen of the world, and I
have met, in my time, with so many different sorts of virtue, that I am
puzzled, in my old age, to say which is the right sort and which is the
wrong. Here, in England, there is one virtue. And there, in China, there
is another virtue. And John Englishman says my virtue is the genuine
virtue. And John Chinaman says my virtue is the genuine virtue. And I say
Yes to one, or No to the other, and am just as much bewildered about it in
the case of John with the top-boots as I am in the case of John with the
pigtail. Ah, nice little Mousey! come, kiss me. What is your own private
notion of a virtuous man, my pret-pret-pretty? A man who keeps you warm,
and gives you plenty to eat. And a good notion, too, for it is
intelligible, at the least.”

“Stay a minute, Count,” I interposed. “Accepting your illustration, surely
we have one unquestionable virtue in England which is wanting in China.
The Chinese authorities kill thousands of innocent people on the most
frivolous pretexts. We in England are free from all guilt of that kind—we
commit no such dreadful crime—we abhor reckless bloodshed with all
our hearts.”

“Quite right, Marian,” said Laura. “Well thought of, and well expressed.”

“Pray allow the Count to proceed,” said Madame Fosco, with stern civility.
“You will find, young ladies, that he never speaks without having
excellent reasons for all that he says.”

“Thank you, my angel,” replied the Count. “Have a bon-bon?” He took out of
his pocket a pretty little inlaid box, and placed it open on the table.
“Chocolat a la Vanille,” cried the impenetrable man, cheerfully rattling
the sweetmeats in the box, and bowing all round. “Offered by Fosco as an
act of homage to the charming society.”

“Be good enough to go on, Count,” said his wife, with a spiteful reference
to myself. “Oblige me by answering Miss Halcombe.”

“Miss Halcombe is unanswerable,” replied the polite Italian; “that is to
say, so far as she goes. Yes! I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the
crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out
faults that are his neighbours’, and the slowest old gentleman at finding
out the faults that are his own, who exists on the face of creation. Is he
so very much better in this way than the people whom he condemns in their
way? English Society, Miss Halcombe, is as often the accomplice as it is
the enemy of crime. Yes! yes! Crime is in this country what crime is in
other countries—a good friend to a man and to those about him as
often as it is an enemy. A great rascal provides for his wife and family.
The worse he is the more he makes them the objects for your sympathy. He
often provides also for himself. A profligate spendthrift who is always
borrowing money will get more from his friends than the rigidly honest man
who only borrows of them once, under pressure of the direst want. In the
one case the friends will not be at all surprised, and they will give. In
the other case they will be very much surprised, and they will hesitate.
Is the prison that Mr. Scoundrel lives in at the end of his career a more
uncomfortable place than the workhouse that Mr. Honesty lives in at the
end of his career? When John-Howard-Philanthropist wants to relieve
misery he goes to find it in prisons, where crime is wretched—not in
huts and hovels, where virtue is wretched too. Who is the English poet who
has won the most universal sympathy—who makes the easiest of all
subjects for pathetic writing and pathetic painting? That nice young
person who began life with a forgery, and ended it by a suicide—your
dear, romantic, interesting Chatterton. Which gets on best, do you think,
of two poor starving dressmakers—the woman who resists temptation
and is honest, or the woman who falls under temptation and steals? You all
know that the stealing is the making of that second woman’s fortune—it
advertises her from length to breadth of good-humoured, charitable England—and
she is relieved, as the breaker of a commandment, when she would have been
left to starve, as the keeper of it. Come here, my jolly little Mouse!
Hey! presto! pass! I transform you, for the time being, into a respectable
lady. Stop there, in the palm of my great big hand, my dear, and listen.
You marry the poor man whom you love, Mouse, and one half your friends
pity, and the other half blame you. And now, on the contrary, you sell
yourself for gold to a man you don’t care for, and all your friends
rejoice over you, and a minister of public worship sanctions the base
horror of the vilest of all human bargains, and smiles and smirks
afterwards at your table, if you are polite enough to ask him to
breakfast. Hey! presto! pass! Be a mouse again, and squeak. If you
continue to be a lady much longer, I shall have you telling me that
Society abhors crime—and then, Mouse, I shall doubt if your own eyes
and ears are really of any use to you. Ah! I am a bad man, Lady Glyde, am
I not? I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the
world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the
rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard, and shows the bare bones
beneath. I will get up on my big elephant’s legs, before I do myself any
more harm in your amiable estimations—I will get up and take a
little airy walk of my own. Dear ladies, as your excellent Sheridan said,
I go—and leave my character behind me.”

He got up, put the cage on the table, and paused for a moment to count the
mice in it. “One, two, three, four——Ha!” he cried, with a look
of horror, “where, in the name of Heaven, is the fifth—the youngest,
the whitest, the most amiable of all—my Benjamin of mice!”

Neither Laura nor I were in any favorable disposition to be amused. The
Count’s glib cynicism had revealed a new aspect of his nature from which
we both recoiled. But it was impossible to resist the comical distress of
so very large a man at the loss of so very small a mouse. We laughed in
spite of ourselves; and when Madame Fosco rose to set the example of
leaving the boat-house empty, so that her husband might search it to its
remotest corners, we rose also to follow her out.

Before we had taken three steps, the Count’s quick eye discovered the lost
mouse under the seat that we had been occupying. He pulled aside the
bench, took the little animal up in his hand, and then suddenly stopped,
on his knees, looking intently at a particular place on the ground just
beneath him.

When he rose to his feet again, his hand shook so that he could hardly put
the mouse back in the cage, and his face was of a faint livid yellow hue
all over.

“Percival!” he said, in a whisper. “Percival! come here.”

Sir Percival had paid no attention to any of us for the last ten minutes.
He had been entirely absorbed in writing figures on the sand, and then
rubbing them out again with the point of his stick.

“What’s the matter now?” he asked, lounging carelessly into the
boat-house.

“Do you see nothing there?” said the Count, catching him nervously by the
collar with one hand, and pointing with the other to the place near which
he had found the mouse.

“I see plenty of dry sand,” answered Sir Percival, “and a spot of dirt in
the middle of it.”

“Not dirt,” whispered the Count, fastening the other hand suddenly on Sir
Percival’s collar, and shaking it in his agitation. “Blood.”

Laura was near enough to hear the last word, softly as he whispered it.
She turned to me with a look of terror.

“Nonsense, my dear,” I said. “There is no need to be alarmed. It is only
the blood of a poor little stray dog.”

Everybody was astonished, and everybody’s eyes were fixed on me
inquiringly.

“How do you know that?” asked Sir Percival, speaking first.

“I found the dog here, dying, on the day when you all returned from
abroad,” I replied. “The poor creature had strayed into the plantation,
and had been shot by your keeper.”

“Whose dog was it?” inquired Sir Percival. “Not one of mine?”

“Did you try to save the poor thing?” asked Laura earnestly. “Surely you
tried to save it, Marian?”

“Yes,” I said, “the housekeeper and I both did our best—but the dog
was mortally wounded, and he died under our hands.”