"Certainly not," replied Miss Halcombe.

"Did she see you?"

"No."

"She saw nobody from the house, then,
except a certain Mr. Hartright, who accidentally
met with her in the churchyard here?"

"Nobody else."

"Mr. Hartright was employed at Limmeridge
as a drawing-master, I believe? Is he a
member of one of the Water-Colour Societies?"

"I believe he is," answered Miss Halcombe.

He paused for a moment, as if he was thinking
over the last answer, and then added:

"Did you find out where Anne Catherick was
living, when she was in this neighbourhood?"

''Yes. At a farm on the moor, called Todd's
Corner."

"It is a duty we all owe to the poor creature
herself to trace her," continued Sir Percival.
"She mav have said something at Todd's
Corner which may help us to find her. I will
go there, and make inquiries on the chance. In
the mean time, as I cannot prevail on myself to
discuss this painful subject with Miss Fairlie,
may I beg, Miss Halcombe, that you will kindly
undertake to give her the necessary explanation,
deferring it of course until you have received the
reply to that note."

Miss Halcombe promised to comply with his
request. He thanked her—nodded pleasantly—
and left us, to go and establish himself in his
own room. As he opened the door, the cross-
grained greyhound poked out her sharp muzzle
from under the sofa, and barked and snapped at
him.

"A good morning's work, Miss Halcombe,"
I said, as soon as we were alone. "Here is an
anxious day well ended already."

"Yes" she answered; "no doubt. I am
very glad your mind is satisfied."

"My mind! Surely, with that note in your
hand, your mind is at ease too?"

"Oh, yes—how can it be otherwise? I know
the thing could not be," she went on, speaking
more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish
Walter Hartright had staid here long enough to
be present at the explanation, and to hear the
proposal to me to write this note."

I was a little surprised—perhaps a little
piqued, also, by these last words.

"Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright
very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I
said: "and I readily admit that he conducted
himself, all things considered, with great
delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss
to understand what useful influence his presence
could have exercised in relation to the effect of
Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine."

"It was only a fancy," she said, absently.
"There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore.
Your experience ought to be, and is, the best
guide I can desire."

I did not altogether like her thrusting the
whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on
my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I
should not have been surprised. But resolute,
clear-minded Miss Halcombe, was the very last
person in the world whom I should have
expected to find shrinking from the expression of
an opinion of her own.

"If any doubts still trouble you," I said,
"why not mention them to me at once? Tell
me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir
Percival Glyde?"

"None whatever."

"Do you see anything improbable, or
contradictory, in his explanation?"

"How can I say I do, after the proof he has
offered me of the truth of it? Can there be
better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore,
than the testimony of the woman's mother?"

"None better. If the answer to your note of
inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I, for one,
cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's
can possibly expect from him."

"Then we will post the note," she said, rising
to leave the room, "and dismiss all further
reference to the subject, until the answer arrives.
Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I
can give no better reason for it than that I have
been over-anxious about Laura lately; and
anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of
us."

She left me abruptly; her naturally firm voice
faltering as she spoke those last words. A
sensitive, vehement, passionate nature—a woman of
ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I
had known her from her earliest years; I had
seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than
one trying family crisis, and my long experience
made me attach an importance to her hesitation
under the circumstances here detailed, which I
should certainly not have felt in the case of
another woman. I could see no cause for any
uneasiness or any doubt; but she had made me a
little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless.
In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted
under the irritation of my own unreasonable
state of mind. In my age, I knew better; and
went out philosophically to walk it off.

II.

WE all met again at dinner-time.

Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits
that I hardly recognised him as the same man
whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had
impressed me so strongly at the interview of the
morning. The only trace of his former self that
I could detect, reappeared, every now and then,
in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or
a word from her, suspended his loudest laugh,
checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered
him all attention to her, and to no one else at
table, in an instant. Although he never openly
tried to draw her into the conversation, he never
lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting
her drift into it by accident, and of saying the
words to her, under those favourable
circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy
would have pointedly addressed to her the
moment they occurred to him. Rather to my
surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible
of his attentions, without being moved by them.
She was a little confused from time to time,