the rest. The last fold displayed a strip of blank
parchment with little wafers stuck on it at
certain places. Every line of the writing was
hidden in the part which he still held folded up
under his hand. Laura and I looked at each
other. Her face was pale—but it showed no
indecision and no fear.

Sir Percival dipped a pen in ink, and handed
it to his wife.

"Sign your name, there," he said, pointing to
the place. "You and Fosco are to sign
afterwards, Miss Halcombe, opposite those two
wafers. Come here, Fosco! witnessing a
signature is not to be done by mooning out of
window and smoking into the flowers."

The Count threw away his cigarette, and
joined us at the table, with his hands carelessly
thrust into the scarlet belt of his blouse, and his
eyes steadily fixed on Sir Percival's face. Laura,
who was on the other side of her husband, with
the pen in her hand, looked at him, too. He
stood between them, holding the folded parchment
down firmly on the table, and glancing
across at me, as I sat opposite to him, with such
a sinister mixture of suspicion and embarrassment
in his face, that he looked more like a
prisoner at the bar than a gentleman in his own
house.

"Sign there," he repeated, turning suddenly
on Laura, and pointing once more to the place
on the parchment.

"What is it I am to sign?" she asked,
quietly.

"I have no time to explain," he answered.
"The dog-cart is at the door; and I must go
directly. Besides, if I had time, you wouldn't
understand. It is a purely formal document—
full of legal technicalities, and all that sort of
thing. Come! come! sign your name, and let
us have done as soon as possible."

"I ought surely to know what I am signing,
Sir Percival, before I write my name?"

"Nonsense! What have women to do with
business? I tell you again, you can't
understand it."

"At any rate, let me try to understand it.
Whenever Mr. Gilmore had any business for me
to do, he always explained it, first; and I
always understood him."

"I dare say he did. He was your servant,
and was obliged to explain. I am your husband,
and am not obliged. How much longer do you
mean to keep me here? I tell you again, there
is no time for reading anything: the dog-cart is
waiting at the door. Once for all, will you sign,
or will you not?"

She still had the pen in her hand; but she
made no approach to signing her name with it.

"If my signature pledges me to anything,"
she said, "surely, I have some claim to know
what that pledge is?"

He lifted up the parchment, and struck it
angrily on the table.

"Speak out!" he said. "You were always
famous for telling the truth. Never mind Miss
Halcombe; never mind Fosco—say, in plain
terms, you distrust me."

The Count took one of his hands out of his
belt, and laid it on Sir Percival's shoulder. Sir
Percival shook it off irritably. The Count put
it on again with unruffled composure.

"Control your unfortunate temper, Percival,"
he said. "Lady Glyde is right."

"Right!" cried Sir Percival. "A wife right
in distrusting her husband!"

"It is unjust and cruel to accuse me of
distrusting you," said Laura. "Ask Marian if I
am not justified in wanting to know what this
writing requires of me, before I sign it?"

"I won't have any appeals made to Miss
Halcombe," retorted Sir Percival. "Miss
Halcombe has nothing to do with the matter."

I had not spoken hitherto, and I would much
rather not have spoken now. But the expression
of distress in Laura's face when she turned it
towards me, and the insolent injustice of her
husband's conduct, left me no other alternative
than to give my opinion, for her sake, as soon as
I was asked for it.

"Excuse me, Sir Percival," I said—"but, as
one of the witnesses to the signature, I venture
to think that I have something to do with the
matter. Laura's objection seems to me to be
a perfectly fair one; and, speaking for myself
only, I cannot assume the responsibility of
witnessing her signature, unless she first
understands what the writing is which you wish her
to sign."

"A cool declaration, upon my soul!" cried
Sir Percival. "The next time you invite yourself
to a man's house, Miss Halcombe, I recommend
you not to repay his hospitality by taking his
wife's side against him in a matter that doesn't
concern you."

I started to my feet as suddenly as if he had
struck me. If I had been a man, I would have
knocked him down on the threshold of his own
door, and have left his house, never, on any
earthly consideration, to enter it again. But I
was only a woman—and I loved his wife so
dearly!

Thank God, that faithful love helped me, and
I sat down again, without saying a word. She
knew what I had suffered and what I had
suppressed. She ran round to me, with the tears
streaming from her eyes. "Oh, Marian!" she
whispered softly. "If my mother had been
alive, she could have done no more for me!"

"Come back and sign!" cried Sir Percival,
from the other side of the table.

"Shall I?" she asked in my ear; "I will, if
you tell me."

"No," I answered. "The right and the truth
are with you—sign nothing, unless you have
read it first."

"Come back and sign!" he reiterated, in his
loudest and angriest tones.

The Count, who had watched Laura and me
with a close and silent attention, interposed for
the second time.

"Percival!" he said. "I remember that I
am in the presence of ladies. Be good enough,
if you please, to remember it, too."

Sir Percival turned on him, speechless with