"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."

"Whose dog was it?" persisted Sir Percival,
repeating his question a little irritably. "One
of mine?"

"No; not one of yours."

"Whose then? Did the housekeeper know?"

The housekeeper's report of Mrs. Catherick's
desire to conceal her visit to Blackwater Park
from Sir Percival's knowledge, recurred to my
memory the moment he put that last question;
and I half doubted the discretion of answering
it. But, in my anxiety to quiet the general
alarm, I had thoughtlessly advanced too far to
draw back, except at the risk of exciting
suspicions, which might only make matters worse.
There was nothing for it but to answer at once,
without reference to results.

"Yes," I said. "The housekeeper knew.
She told me it was Mrs. Catherick's dog."

Sir Percival had hitherto remained at the inner
end of the boat-house with Count Fosco, while
I spoke to him from the door. But the instant
Mrs. Catherick's name passed my lips, he pushed
by the Count roughly, and placed himself face
to face with me, under the open daylight.

"How came the housekeeper to know it was
Mrs. Catherick's dog?" he asked, fixing his eyes
on mine with a frowning interest and attention,
which half angered, half startled me.

"She knew it," I said, quietly, "because Mrs.
Catherick brought the dog with her."

"Brought it with her? Where did she bring
it with her?"

"To this house."

"What the devil did Mrs. Catherick want at
this house?"

The manner in which he put the question was
even more offensive than the language in which
he expressed it. I marked my sense of his
want of common politeness, by silently turning
away from him.

Just as I moved, the Count's persuasive hand
was laid on his shoulder, and the Count's
mellifluous voice interposed to quiet him.

"My dear Percival!—gently—gently."

Sir Percival looked around in his angriest
manner. The Count only smiled, and repeated
the soothing application.

"Gently, my good friend—gently!"

Sir Percival hesitated—followed me a few
steps—and, to my great surprise, offered me an
apology.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe," he
said. "I have been out of order lately; and I
am afraid I am a little irritable. But I should
like to know what Mrs. Catherick could possibly
want here. When did she come? Was the
housekeeper the only person who saw her?"

"The only person," I answered, "so far as
I know."

The Count interposed again.

"In that case, why not question the
housekeeper?" he said. "Why not go, Percival, to
the fountain-head of information at once?"

"Quite right!" said Sir Percival. "Of
course the housekeeper is the first person to
question. Excessively stupid of me not to see
it myself." With those words, he instantly left
us to return to the house.

The motive of the Count's interference, which
had puzzled me at first, betrayed itself when Sir
Percival's back was turned. He had a host of
questions to put to me about Mrs. Catherick,
and the cause of her visit to Blackwater Park,
which he could scarcely have asked in his
friend's presence. I made my answers as short
as I civilly could—for I had already determined
to check the least approach to any exchanging
of confidences between Count Fosco and myself.
Laura, however, unconsciously helped him to
extract all my information, by making inquiries
herself, which left me no alternative but to reply
to her, or to appear before them all in the very
unenviable and very false character of a
depositary of Sir Percival's secrets. The end of
it was, that, in about ten minutes' time, the
Count knew as much as I know of Mrs. Catherick,
and of the events which have so strangely
connected us with her daughter, Anne, from the
time when Hartright met with her, to this day.

The effect of my information on him was, in
one respect, curious enough. Intimately as he
knows Sir Percival, and closely as he appears to
be associated with Sir Percival's private affairs
in general, he is certainly as far as I am from
knowing anything of the true story of Anne
Catherick. The unsolved mystery in connexion
with this unhappy woman is now rendered
doubly suspicious, in my eyes, by the absolute
conviction which I feel, that the clue to it has
been hidden by Sir Percival from the most
intimate friend he has in the world. It was impossible
to mistake the eager curiosity of the Count's
look and manner while he drank in greedily every
word that fell from my lips. There are many kinds
of curiosity, I know—but there is no misinterpreting
the curiosity of blank surprise: if I ever
saw it; in my life, I saw it in the Count's face.

While the questions and answers were going
on, we had all been strolling quietly back,
through the plantation. As soon as we reached
the house, the first object that we saw in front
of it was Sir Percival's dog-cart, with the horse
put to and the groom waiting by it in his stable-
jacket. If these unexpected appearances were
to be trusted, the examination of the
housekeeper had produced important results already.

"A fine horse, my friend," said the Count,
addressing the groom with the most engaging
familiarity of manner. "You are going to drive out?"

"/ am not going, sir," replied the man,
looking at his stable-jacket, and evidently
wondering whether the foreign gentleman took it
for his livery. "My master drives himself."

"Aha?" said the Count, "does he indeed?
I wonder he gives himself the trouble when he
has got you to drive for him? Is he going to
fatigue that nice, shining, pretty horse by taking
him very far, to-day?"