quite certain himself that I was not the Miss
Gwilt of whom his friend was in search; and that he only acted as he did
out of regard to the anxiety of a person whose wishes he was bound to
respect. Would I assist him in setting that anxiety completely at rest,
as far as I was concerned, by kindly answering one plain question--which
he had no other right to ask me than the right my indulgence might
give him? The lost 'Miss Gwilt' had been missed on Monday last, at two
o'clock, in the crowd on the platform of the North-western Railway, in
Euston Square. Would I authorize him to say that on that day, and at
that hour, the Miss Gwilt who was Major Milroy's governess had never
been near the place?

"I need hardly tell you that I seized the fine opportunity he had given
me of disarming all future suspicion. I took a high tone on the spot,
and met him with the old lady's letter. He politely refused to look at
it. I insisted on his looking at it. 'I don't choose to be mistaken,'
I said, 'for a woman who may be a bad character, because she happens
to bear, or to have assumed, the same name as mine. I insist on your
reading the first part of this letter for my satisfaction, if not for
your own.' He was obliged to comply; and there was the proof, in the old
lady's handwriting, that, at two o'clock on Monday last, she and I were
together in Kingsdown Crescent, which any directory would tell him is a
'crescent' in Bayswater! I leave you to imagine his apologies, and the
perfect sweetness with which I received them.

"I might, of course, if I had not preserved the letter, have referred
him to you, or to the major's mother, with similar results. As it is,
the object has been gained without trouble or delay. _I have been proved
not to be myself_; and one of the many dangers that threatened me
at Thorpe Ambrose is a danger blown over from this moment. Your
house-maid's face may not be a very handsome one; but there is no
denying that it has done us excellent service.

"So much for the past; now for the future. You shall hear how I get
on with the people about me; and you shall judge for yourself what the
chances are for and against my becoming mistress of Thorpe Ambrose.

"Let me begin with young Armadale--because it is beginning with good
news. I have produced the right impression on him already, and Heaven
knows _that_ is nothing to boast of! Any moderately good-looking woman
who chose to take the trouble could make him fall in lo