Yes—the last chance and the best,"  I
whispered back.

"Not alone! Oh, Walter, for God's sake,
not alone! Let me go with you. Don't refuse
me because I'm only a woman. I must go! I
will go! I'll wait outside in the cab!"

It was my turn, now, to hold her. She tried
to break away from me, and get down first to
the door.

"If you want to help me," I said, " stop here,
and sleep in my wife's room to-night. Only let
me go away, with my mind easy about Laura, and
I answer for everything else. Come, Marian,
give me a kiss, and show that you have the
courage to wait till I come back."

I dared not allow her time to say a word
more. She tried to hold me again. I unclasped
her hands—and was out of the room in a
moment. The boy below heard me on the
stairs, and opened the hall-door. I jumped into the
cab, before the driver could get off the box.
"Forest-road, St. John's Wood," I called to
him through the front window. " Double fare
if you get there in a quarter of an, hour." " I'll
do it, sir." I looked at my watch. Eleven
o'clock—not a minute to lose.

The rapid motion of the cab, the sense that
every instant now was bringing me nearer to
the Count, the conviction that I was embarked
at last, without let or hindrance, on my
hazardous enterprise, heated me into such a fever
of excitement that I shouted to the man to go
faster and faster. As we left the streets, and
crossed St. John's Wood-road, my impatience
so completely overpowered me that I stood up
in the cab and stretched my head out of the
window, to see the end of the journey before we
reached it. Just as a church clock in the
distance struck the quarter past, we turned into
the Forest-road. I stopped the driver a little
away from the Count's house paid, and
dismissed him and walked on to the door.

As I approached the garden gate, I saw
another person advancing towards it also, from the
direction opposite to mine. We met under the
gas-lamp in the road, and looked at each other.
I instantly recognised the light-haired foreigner,
with the scar on his cheek; and I thought he
recognised me. He said nothing; and, instead
of stopping at the house, as I did, he slowly
walked on. Was he in the Forest-road by
accident? Or had he followed the Count home
from the Opera?

I did not pursue those questions. After waiting
a little, till the foreigner had slowly passed
out of sight, I rang the gate bell. It was then
twenty; minutes past eleven—late enough to
make it quite easy for the Count to get rid of
me by the excuse that he was in bed.

The only way of providing against this
contingency was to send in my name, without
asking any preliminary questions, and to let him
know, at the same time, that I had a serious
motive for wishing to see him at that late hour.
Accordingly, while I was waiting, I took out my
card, and wrote, under my name, " On important
business," The maid-servant answered the door,
while I was writing the last word in pencil;
and asked me distrustfully what I " pleased to
want."

"Be so good as to take that to your master,"
I replied, giving her the card.

I saw, by the girl's hesitation of manner, that
if I had asked for the Count in the first
instance, she would only have followed her
instructions by telling me he was not at home.
She was staggered by the confidence with which
I gave her the card;. After staring at me in
great perturbation, she went back into the house
with my message, closing the door, and leaving
me to wait in the garden.

In a minute or so, she reappeared. "Her
master's compliments, and would I be so
obliging as to say what my business was?"
" Take my compliments backj" I replied; " and
say that the business cannot be mentioned to
any one but your master." She left me again—
again returned—and, this time, asked me to
walk in.

There was no lamp in the hall; but by the
dim light of the kitchen candle which the girl
had brought upstairs with her, I saw an elderly
lady steal noiselessly out of a back room on the
ground floor. She cast one viperish look, at me
as I entered the hall, but said nothing, and went
slowly upstairs, without returning my bow.
My familiarity with Marian's journal sufficiently
assured me that the elderly lady was Madame
Fosco.

The servant led me to the room which the
Countess had just left. I entered it; and found
myself face to face with the Count.

He was still in his evening dress, except his
coat, which he had thrown across a chair. His
shirt-sleeves were turned up at the wrists—but
no higher. A carpet-bag was on one side of
him, and a box on the other. Books, papers,
and articles of wearing apparel were scattered
about the room. On a table, at one side of the
door, stood the cage, so well known to me by
description, which contained his white mice.
The canaries and the cockatoo were probably in
some other room. He was seated before the
box, packing it, when I went in, and rose with
some papers in his hand to receive me. His face
still betrayed plain traces of the shock that had
overwhelmed him at the Opera. His fat cheeks
hung loose; his cold grey eves were furtively
vigilant; his voice, look, and manner were all
sharply suspicious alike, as he advanced a step
to meet me, and requested, with distant civility,
that I would take a chair.

"You come here on business, sir?" he said
." I am at a loss to know what that business can
possibly be."

The unconcealed curiosity with which he
looked hard in my face while he spoke,
convinced me that I had passed unnoticed by him
at the Opera. He had seen Pesca first; and
from that moment, till he left the theatre, he
had evidently seen nothing else. My name would
necessarily suggest to him that I had not come
into his house with other than Hostile purpose
towards himself—but he appeared to be utterly