ccepted
the guilty appearances described to me as unreservedly as others had
accepted them, if I drew from them the same superficial conclusion
which Mr. Catherick and all his neighbours had drawn, where was the
suggestion, in all that I had heard, of a dangerous secret between Sir
Percival and Mrs. Catherick, which had been kept hidden from that time
to this?

And yet, in those stolen meetings, in those familiar whisperings
between the clerk's wife and "the gentleman in mourning," the clue to
discovery existed beyond a doubt.

Was it possible that appearances in this case had pointed one way while
the truth lay all the while unsuspected in another direction? Could
Mrs. Catherick's assertion, that she was the victim of a dreadful
mistake, by any possibility be true? Or, assuming it to be false, could
the conclusion which associated Sir Percival with her guilt have been
founded in some inconceivable error? Had Sir Percival, by any chance,
courted the suspicion that was wrong for the sake of diverting from
himself some other suspicion that was right? Here--if I could find
it--here was the approach to the Secret, hidden deep under the surface
of the apparently unpromising story which I had just heard.

My next questions were now directed to the one object of ascertaining
whether Mr. Catherick had or had not arrived truly at the conviction of
his wife's misconduct. The answers I received from Mrs. Clements left
me in no doubt whatever on that point. Mrs. Catherick had, on the
clearest evidence, compromised her reputation, while a single woman,
with some person unknown, and had married to save her character. It
had been positively ascertained, by calculations of time and place into
which I need not enter particularly, that the daughter who bore her
husband's name was not her husband's child.

The next object of inquiry, whether it was equally certain that Sir
Percival must have been the father of Anne, was beset by far greater
difficulties. I was in no position to try the probabilities on one
side or on the other in this instance by any better test than the test
of personal resemblance.

"I suppose you often saw Sir Percival when he was in your village?" I
said.

"Yes, sir, very often," replied Mrs. Clements.

"Did you ever observe that Anne was like him?"

"She was not at all like him, sir."

"Was she like her mother, then?"

"Not like her mother either, sir. Mrs. Catherick was dark, and full in
the face