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 deathlike 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 life-long 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 resemlance
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
reflexions 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 petrifiied me from
head to foot on the night when we first met.