erests of my own security, and
to step out of the false position in which my own rashness has placed
me--if I can."

"Seven o'clock.--My spirits have risen again. I believe I am in a fair
way of extricating myself already.

"I have just come back from a long round in a cab. First, to the
cloak-room of the Great Western, to get the luggage which I sent there
from All Saints' Terrace. Next, to the cloak-room of the Southeastern,
to leave my luggage (labeled in Midwinter's name), to wait for me
till the starting of the tidal train on Monday. Next, to the General
Post-office, to post a letter to Midwinter at the rectory, which he will
receive to-morrow morning. Lastly, back again to this house--from which
I shall move no more till Monday comes.

"My letter to Midwinter will, I have little doubt, lead to his seconding
(quite innocently) the precautions that I am taking for my own safety.
The shortness of the time at our disposal on Monday will oblige him to
pay his bill at the hotel and to remove his luggage before the marriage
ceremony takes place. All I ask him to do beyond this is to take the
luggage himself to the Southeastern (so as to make any inquiries useless
which may address themselves to the servants at the hotel)--and, that
done, to meet me at the church door, instead of calling for me here.
The rest concerns nobody but myself. When Sunday night or Monday
morning comes, it will be hard, indeed--freed as I am now from all
incumbrances--if I can't give the people who are watching me the slip
for the second time.

"It seems needless enough to have written to Midwinter to-day, when he
is coming back to me to-morrow night. But it was impossible to ask,
what I have been obliged to ask of him, without making my false family
circumstances once more the excuse; and having this to do--I must own
the truth--I wrote to him because, after what I suffered on the last
occasion, I can never again deceive him to his face."

"August 9th.--Two o'clock.--I rose early this morning, more depressed in
spirits than usual. The re-beginning of one's life, at the re-beginning
of every day, has already been something weary and hopeless to me for
years past. I dreamed, too, all through the night--not of Midwinter
and of my married life, as I had hoped to dream--but of the wretched
conspiracy to discover me, by which I have been driven from one place to
another, like a hunted animal. Nothing in the shape of a new revelation
enlighte