with the husband of Madame Rubelle. I returned
at night. Five days afterwards, the physician
pronounced our interesting Marian to be out of
all danger, and to be in need of nothing but
careful nursing. This was the time I had waited
for. Now that medical attendance was no longer
indispensable, I played the first move in the
game by asserting myself against the doctor.
He was one among many witnesses in my way,
whom it was necessary to remove. A lively
altercation between us (in which Percival,
previously instructed by me, refused to interfere)
served the purpose in view. I descended on the
miserable man in an irresistible avalanche of
indignation—and swept him from the house.

The servants were the next encumbrances to
get rid of. Again I instructed Percival (whose
moral courage required perpetual stimulants),
and Mrs. Michelson was amazed, one day, by
hearing from her master that the establishment
was to be broken up. We cleared the house of
all the servants but one, who was kept for
domestic purposes, and whose lumpish stupidity
we could trust to make no embarrassing
discoveries. When they were gone, nothing
remained but to relieve ourselves of Mrs. Michelson
—a result which was easily achieved by
sending this amiable lady to find lodgings for her
mistress at the sea-side.

The circumstances were now—exactly what
they were required to be. Lady Glyde was
confined to her room by nervous illness; and the
lumpish housemaid (I forget her name) was shut
up there, at night, in attendance on her mistress.
Marian, though fast recovering, still kept her
bed, with Mrs. Rubelle for nurse. No other
living creatures but my wife, myself, and
Percival, were in the house. With all the chances
thus in our favour, I confronted the next
emergency, and played the second move in the game.

The object of the second move was to induce
Lady Glyde to leave Blackwater, unaccompanied
by her sister. Unless we could persuade her
that Marian had gone on to Cumberland first,
there was no chance of removing her, of her
own free will, from the house. To produce this
necessary operation in her mind, we concealed
our interesting invalid in one of the uninhabited
bedrooms at Blackwater. At the dead of night,
Madame Fosco, Madame Rubelle, and myself
(Percival not being cool enough to be trusted),
accomplished the concealment. The scene was
picturesque, mysterious, dramatic, in the highest
degree. By my directions, the bed had been
made, in the morning, on a strong movable
framework of wood. We had only to lift the
framework gently at the head and foot, and to
transport our patient where we pleased, without
disturbing herself or her bed. No chemical
assistance was needed, or used, in this case. Our
interesting Marian lay in the deep repose of
convalescence. We placed the candles and
opened the doors, beforehand. I, in right of my
great personal strength, took the head of the
framework—my wife and Madame Rubelle took
the foot. I bore my share of that inestimably
precious burden with a manly tenderness, with
a fatherly care. Where is the modern
Rembrandt who could depict our midnight procession?
Alas for the Arts! alas for this most
pictorial of subjects! the modern Rembrandt is
nowhere to be found.

The next morning, my wife and I started for
London—leaving Marian secluded, in the
uninhabited middle of the house, under care of
Madame Rubelle; who kindly consented to
imprison herself with her patient for two or three
days. Before taking our departure, I gave
Percival Mr. Fairlie's letter of invitation to his
niece (instructing her to sleep on the journey to
Cumberland at her aunt's house), with directions
to show it to Lady Glyde on hearing from me.
I also obtained from him the address of the
Asylum in which Anne Catherick had been
confined, and a letter to the proprietor, announcing
to that gentleman the return of his runaway
patient to medical care.

I had arranged, at my last visit to the metropolis,
to have our modest domestic establishment
ready to receive us when we arrived in London
by the early train. In consequence of this wise
precaution, we were enabled that same day to
play the third move in the game—the getting
possession of Anne Catherick.

Dates are of importance here. I combine in
myself the opposite characteristics of a Man of
Sentiment and a Man of Business. I have all
the dates at my fingers' ends.

On the 27th of July, 1850, I sent my wife, in
a cab, to clear Mrs. Clements out of the way,
in the first place. A supposed message from
Lady Glyde in London, was sufficient to obtain
this result. Mrs. Clements was taken away in
the cab, and was left in the cab, while my wife
(on pretence of purchasing something at a shop)
gave her the slip, and returned to receive her
expected visitor at our house in St. John's
Wood. It is hardly necessary to add that the
visitor had been described to the servants as
"Lady Glyde."

In the mean while I had followed in another
cab, with a note for Anne Catherick, merely
mentioning that Lady Glyde intended to keep
Mrs. Clements to spend the day with her, and
that she was to join them, under care of the
good gentleman waiting outside, who had already
saved her from discovery in Hampshire by Sir
Percival. The "good gentleman" sent in this
note by a street boy, and paused for results, a
door or two farther on. At the moment when
Anne appeared at the house-door and closed it,
this excellent man had the cab-door open ready
for her—absorbed her into the vehicle—and
drove off.

(Pass me, here, one exclamation in
parenthesis. How interesting this is!)

On the way to Forest-road, my companion
showed no fear. I can be paternal—no man
more so—when I please; and I was intensely
paternal on this occasion. What titles I had
to her confidence! I had compounded the
medicine which had done her good; I had warned
her of her danger from Sir Percival. Perhaps,
I trusted too implicitly to these titles; perhaps,