"I will keep his letter, Marian, to help my
memory when the time comes."

She looked at me attentively as I put the
letter away in my pocket-book.

"When the time comes?" she repeated.
"Can you speak of the future as if you were
certain of it?—certain after what you have heard
in Mr. Kyrle's office, after what has happened
to you to-day?"

"I don't count the time from to-day, Marian.
All I have done to-day, is to ask another man
to act for me. I count from to-morrow——"

"Why from to-morrow?"

"Because to-morrow I mean to act for
myself."

"How?"

"I shall go to Blackwater by the first train;
and return, I hope, at night."

"To Blackwater!"

"Yes. I have had time to think, since I left
Mr. Kyrle. His opinion, on one point, confirms
my own. We must persist, to the last, in hunting
down the date of Laura's journey. The one
weak point in the conspiracy, and probably the
one chance of proving that she is a living
woman, centre in the discovery of that date."

"You mean," said Marian, "the discovery
that Laura did not leave Blackwater Park till
after the date of her death on the doctor's
certificate?"

"Certainly."

"What makes you think it might have been
after? Laura can tell us nothing of the time
she was in London."

"But the owner of the Asylum told you that
she was received there on the thirtieth of July.
I doubt Count Fosco's ability to keep her in
London, and to keep her insensible to all that
was passing around her, more than one night.
In that case, she must have started on the
twenty-ninth, and must have come to London
one day after the date of her own death on the
doctor's certificate. If we can prove that date,
we prove our case against Sir Percival and the
Count."

. "Yes, yes—I see! But how is the proof to
be obtained?"

"Mrs. Michelson's narrative has suggested
to me two ways of trying to obtain it. One of
them is, to question the doctor, Mr. Dawson—
who must know when he resumed his attendance
at Blackwater Park, after Laura left the house.
The other is, to make inquiries at the inn to
which Sir Percival drove away by himself, at
night. We know that his departure followed
Laura's, after the lapse of a few hours; and we
may get at the date in that way. The attempt
is at least worth making—and, to-morrow, I am
determined it shall be made."

"And suppose it fails—I look at the worst,
now, Walter; but I will look at the best, if
disappointments come to try us—suppose no one
can help you at Blackwater?"

"There are two men who can help me, and
shall help me, in London—Sir Percival and the
Count. Innocent people may well forget the
date—but they are guilty, and they know it. If
I fail everywhere else, I mean to force a confession
out of one or both of them, on my own terms."

All the woman flushed up in Marian's face, as
I spoke.

"Begin with the Count!" she whispered,
eagerly. "For my sake, begin with the Count."

"We must begin, for Laura's sake, where
there is the best chance of success," I replied.

The colour faded from her face again, and she
shook her head sadly.

"Yes," she said, "you are right—it was mean
and miserable of me to say that. I try to be
patient, Walter, and succeed better now than I
did in happier times. But I have a little of my
old temper still left—and it will get the better
of me when I think of the Count!"

"His turn will come," I said. "But, remember,
there is no weak place in his life that we
know of, yet." I waited a little to let her
recover her self-possession; and then spoke the
decisive words:

"Marian! There is a weak place we both
know of in Sir Percival's life——"

"You mean the Secret!"

"Yes: the Secret. It is our only sure hold
on him. I can force him from his position of
security, I can drag him and his villany into
the face of day, by no other means. Whatever
the Count may have done, Sir Percival has
consented to the conspiracy against Laura from
another motive besides the motive of gain. You
heard him tell the Count that he believed his
wife knew enough to ruin him? You heard
him say that he was a lost man if the secret of
Anne Catherick was known?"

"Yes! yes! I did."

"Well, Marian, when our other resources
have failed us, I mean to know it. My old
superstition clings to me, even yet. I say again,
the woman in white is a living influence in our
three lives. The End is appointed; the End is
drawing us on—and Anne Catherick, dead in
her grave, points the way to it still!"

EARTHQUAKES.

A FEW weeks ago we had the satisfaction of
startling some of our steadiest readers from their
repose by informing them of the prospect of a
great deluge appointed to take place, according
to the calculations of M. Adhémar, in the year of
our Lord eight thousand one hundred and sixty.*
We have, since, taken pains to learn whether
or not we are in a shaky condition generally,
and more especially what our prospects are in
regard to earthquakes; the result is so serious,
that we earnestly request the reader's attention
to what we have to communicate.
* See page 25 of the present volume.

To those who have not been refreshed by
recent reading on the subject, it may seem
that earthquakes in London are not things
much more likely to be experienced than snow
at Midsummer, or green peas at Christmas.
But we have undertaken researches, and we
find, in the British Museum Library, "A
short and pithie Discourse concerning the