screet silence Mrs. Clements had done her best to secure, for the
first week at least. She had also tried hard to induce Anne to be
content with writing to Lady Glyde, in the first instance; but the
failure of the warning contained in the anonymous letter sent to
Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to speak this time, and obstinate in
the determination to go on her errand alone.

Mrs. Clements, nevertheless, followed her privately on each occasion
when she went to the lake, without, however, venturing near enough to
the boat-house to be witness of what took place there. When Anne
returned for the last time from the dangerous neighbourhood, the
fatigue of walking, day after day, distances which were far too great
for her strength, added to the exhausting effect of the agitation from
which she had suffered, produced the result which Mrs. Clements had
dreaded all along. The old pain over the heart and the other symptoms
of the illness at Grimsby returned, and Anne was confined to her bed in
the cottage.

In this emergency the first necessity, as Mrs. Clements knew by
experience, was to endeavour to quiet Anne's anxiety of mind, and for
this purpose the good woman went herself the next day to the lake, to
try if she could find Lady Glyde (who would be sure, as Anne said, to
take her daily walk to the boat-house), and prevail on her to come back
privately to the cottage near Sandon. On reaching the outskirts of the
plantation Mrs. Clements encountered, not Lady Glyde, but a tall,
stout, elderly gentleman, with a book in his hand--in other words,
Count Fosco.

The Count, after looking at her very attentively for a moment, asked if
she expected to see any one in that place, and added, before she could
reply, that he was waiting there with a message from Lady Glyde, but
that he was not quite certain whether the person then before him
answered the description of the person with whom he was desired to
communicate.

Upon this Mrs. Clements at once confided her errand to him, and
entreated that he would help to allay Anne's anxiety by trusting his
message to her. The Count most readily and kindly complied with her
request. The message, he said, was a very important one. Lady Glyde
entreated Anne and her good friend to return immediately to London, as
she felt certain that Sir Percival would discover them if they remained
any longer in the neighbourhood of Blackwater. She was herself going
to London in a short time, and if