"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 ot 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 summerhouse,
took one of the chairs at the little round
table inside, and signed to me take the other.
I had 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.