"Nothing whatever," he replied. "I begin
to be seriously afraid that we have lost her. Do
you happen to know," he continued, looking me
in the face very attentively, "if the artist—Mr.
Hartright—is in a position to give us any further
information?"

"He has neither heard of her, nor seen her,
since he left Cumberland," I answered.

"Very sad," said Sir Percival, speaking like
a man who was disappointed, and yet, oddly
enough, looking, at the same time, like a man
who was relieved. "It is impossible to say
what misfortunes may not have happened to
the miserable creature. I am inexpressibly
annoyed at the failure of all my efforts to
restore her to the care and protection which she
so urgently needs."

This time he really looked annoyed. I said
a few sympathising words; and we then talked
of other subjects, on our way back to the house.
Surely, my chance meeting with him on the
moor has disclosed another favourable trait in
his character? Surely, it was singularly considerate
and unselfish of him to think of Anne
Catherick on the eve of his marriage, and to go
all the way to Todd's Corner to make inquiries
about her, when he might have passed the time
so much more agreeably in Laura's society?
Considering that he can only have acted from
motives of pure charity, his conduct, under the
circumstances, shows unusual good feeling, and
deserves extraordinary praise. Well! I give him
extraordinary praise—and there's an end of it.

19th. More discoveries in the inexhaustible
mine of Sir Percival's virtues.

To-day, I approached the subject of my
proposed sojourn under his wife's roof, when
he brings her back to England. I had
hardly dropped my first hint in this direction,
before he caught me warmly by the
hand, and said I had made the very offer
to him, which he had been, on his side most
anxious to make to me. I was the companion
of all others whom he most sincerely longed to
secure for his wife; and he begged me to
believe that I had conferred a lasting favour on
him by making the proposal to live with Laura
after her marriage, exactly as I had always lived
with her before it.

When I had thanked him, in her name and in
mine, for his considerate kindness to both of us,
we passed next to the subject of his wedding
tour, and began to talk of the English society
in Rome to which Laura was to be introduced.
He ran over the names of several friends whom
he expected to meet abroad this winter. They
were all English, as well as I can remember,
with one exception. The one exception was
Count Fosco.

The mention of the Count's name, and the
discovery that he and his wife are likely to meet
the bride and bridegroom on the continent, puts
Laura's marriage, for the first time, in a
distinctly favourable light. It is likely to be the
means of healing a family feud. Hitherto,
Madame Fosco has chosen to forget her obligations
as Laura's aunt, out of sheer spite against
the late Mr. Fairlie for his conduct in the affair
of the legacy. Now, however, she can persist
in this course of conduct no longer. Sir
Percival and Count Fosco are old and fast friends,
and their wives will have no choice but to meet
on civil terms. Madame Fosco, in her maiden
days, was one of the most impertinent women I
ever met with—capricious, exacting, and vain
to the last degree of absurdity. If her husband
has succeeded in bringing her to her senses,
he deserves the gratitude of every member
of the family—and he may have mine to begin
with.

I am becoming anxious to know the Count.
He is the most intimate friend of Laura's
husband; and, in that capacity, he excites my
strongest interest. Neither Laura nor I have
ever seen him. All I know of him is that his
accidental presence, years ago, on the steps of
the Trinità del Monte at Rome, assisted Sir
Percival's escape from robbery and assassination,
at the critical moment when he was wounded in
the hand, and might, the next instant, have been
wounded in the heart. I remember also that, at
the time of the late Mr. Fairlie's absurd
objections to his sister's marriage, the Count wrote
him a very temperate and sensible letter on the
subject, which, I am ashamed to say, remained
unanswered. This is all I know of Sir Percival's
friend. I wonder if he will ever come to
England? I wonder if I shall like him?

My pen is running away into mere speculation.
Let me return to sober matter of fact. It is
certain that Sir Percival's reception of my
venturesome proposal to live with his wife, was
more than kind, it was almost affectionate. I
am sure Laura's husband will have no reason to
complain of me, if I can only go on as I have
begun. I have already declared him to be
handsome, agreeable, full of good feeling towards
the unfortunate, and full of affectionate kindness
towards me. Really, I hardly know myself
again, in my new character of Sir Percival's
warmest friend.

20th. I hate Sir Percival! I flatly deny his
good looks. I consider him to be eminently
disagreeable, and totally wanting in kindness
and good feeling. Last night, the cards for the
married couple were sent home. Laura opened
the packet, and saw her future name in print,
for the first time. Sir Percival looked over her
shoulder familiarly at the new card which had
already transformed Miss Fairlie into Lady
Glyde—smiled with the most odious
self-complacency—and whispered something in her ear.
I don't know what it was—Laura has refused to
tell me—but I saw her face turn to such a deadly
whiteness that I thought she would have
fainted. He took no notice of the change: he
seemed to be barbarously unconscious that he
had said anything to pain her. All my old
feelings of hostility towards him revived on the
instant; and all the hours that have passed,
since, have done nothing to dissipate them. I
am more unreasonable and more unjust than