I underrated the keenness of the lower instincts
in persons of weak intellect—it is certain that
I neglected to prepare her sufficiently for a
disappointment on entering my house. When I
took her into the drawing-room—when she saw
no one present but Madame Fosco, who was
a stranger to her—she exhibited the most
violent agitation: if she had scented danger in
the air, as a dog scents the presence of some
creature unseen, her alarm could not have
displayed itself more suddenly and more causelessly.
I interposed in vain. The fear from which she
was suffering, I might have soothed—but the
serious heart-disease, under which she laboured,
was beyond the reach of all moral palliatives.
To my unspeakable horror, she was seized with
convulsions—a shock to the system, in her
condition, which might have laid her dead at any
moment, at our feet.

The nearest doctor was sent for, and was told
that "Lady Glyde" required his immediate
services. To my infnite relief, he was a capable
man. I represented my visitor to him as a
person of weak intellect, and subject to delusions;
and I arranged that no nurse but my wife should
watch in the sick-room. The unhappy woman
was too ill, however, to cause any anxiety about
what she might say. The one dread which now
oppressed me, was the dread that the false Lady
Glyde might die, before the true Lady Glyde
arrived in London.

I had written a note in the morning to
Madame Rubelle, telling her to join me, at her
husband's house, on the evening of the 29th; with
another note to Percival, warning him to show
his wife her uncle's letter of invitation, to
assert that Marian had gone on before her, and to
despatch her to town, by the mid-day train, on
the 29th, also. On reflection, I had felt the necessity,
in Anne Catherick's state of health, of
precipitating events, and of having Lady Glyde at
my disposal earlier than I had originally
contemplated. What fresh directions, in the terrible
uncertainty of my position, could I now issue?
I could do nothing but trust to chance and the
doctor. My emotions expressed themselves in
pathetic apostrophes—which I was just
self-possessed enough to couple, in the hearing of other
people, with the name of "Lady Glyde." In all
other respects, Fosco, on that memorable day,
was Fosco shrouded in total eclipse.

She passed a bad night—she awoke worn out—
but, later in the day, she revived amazingly.
My elastic spirits revived with her. I could
receive no answers from Percival and Madame
Rubelle till the morning of the next day—the
29th. In anticipation of their following my
directions, which, accident apart, I knew they
would do, I went to secure a fly to fetch Lady
Glyde from the railway; directing it to be at my
house, on the 29th, at two o'clock. After seeing
the order entered in the book, I went on to
arrange matters with Monsieur Rubelle. I also
procured the services of two gentlemen, who
could furnish me with the necessary certificates
of lunacy. One of them I knew personally:
the other was known to Monsieur Rubelle.
Both were men whose vigorous minds soared
superior to narrow scruples—both were labouring
under temporary embarrassments—both
believed in ME.

It was past five o'clock in the afternoon
before I returned from the performance of these
duties. When I got back, Anne Catherick was
dead. Dead on the 28th; and Lady Glyde was
not to arrive in London till the 29th!

I was stunned. Meditate on that. Fosco
stunned!

It was too late to retrace our steps. Before
my return, the doctor had officiously undertaken
to save me all trouble, by registering the death,
on the date when it happened, with his own
hand. My grand scheme, unassailable hitherto,
had its weak place now—no efforts, on my part,
could alter the fatal event of the 28th. I turned
manfully to the future. Percival's interests and
mine being still at stake, nothing was left but
to play the game through to the end. I recalled
my impenetrable calm—and played it.

On the morning of the 29th, Percival's letter
reached me, announcing his wife's arrival by the
mid-day train. Madame Rubelle also wrote to
say she would follow in the evening. I started
in the fly, leaving the false Lady Glyde dead in
the house, to receive the true Lady Glyde, on
her arrival by the railway, at three o'clock.
Hidden under the seat of the carriage, I carried
with me all the clothes Anne Catherick had worn
on coming into my house—they were destined
to assist the resurrection of the woman who was
dead, in the person of the woman who was
living. What a situation! I suggest it to the
rising romance writers of England. I offer it,
as totally new, to the worn-out dramatists of
France.

Lady Glyde was at the station. There was
great crowding and confusion, and more delay
than I liked (in case any of her friends had
happened to be at the station), in reclaiming her
luggage. Her first questions, as we drove off,
implored me to tell her news of her sister. I
invented news of the most pacifying kind;
assuring her that she was about to see her sister
at my house. My house, on this occasion only,
was in the neighbourhood of Leicester-square,
and was in the occupation of Monsieur Rubelle,
who received us in the hall.

I took my visitor up-stairs into a back room;
the two medical gentlemen being there in waiting
on the floor beneath, to see the patient, and
to give me their certificates. After quieting Lady
Glyde by the necessary assurances about her
sister, I introduced my friends, separately, to her
presence. They performed the formalities of the
occasion, briefly, intelligently, conscientiously.
I entered the room again, as soon as they had left
it; and at once precipitated events by a
reference, of the alarming kind, to "Miss Halcombe's"
state of health.

Results followed as I had anticipated. Lady
Glyde became frightened, and turned faint. For
the second time, and the last, I called Science
to my assistance. A medicated glass of water,
and a medicated bottle of smelling-salts,