st that week. I have all
those hidden drawings in my possession still--they are my treasures
beyond price--the dear remembrances that I love to keep alive--the
friends in past adversity that my heart will never part from, my
tenderness never forget.

Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? am I looking
forward to the happier time which my narrative has not yet reached?
Yes. Back again--back to the days of doubt and dread, when the spirit
within me struggled hard for its life, in the icy stillness of
perpetual suspense. I have paused and rested for a while on my forward
course. It is not, perhaps, time wasted, if the friends who read these
pages have paused and rested too.

I took the first opportunity I could find of speaking to Marian in
private, and of communicating to her the result of the inquiries which
I had made that morning. She seemed to share the opinion on the
subject of my proposed journey to Welmingham, which Mrs. Clements had
already expressed to me.

"Surely, Walter," she said, "you hardly know enough yet to give you any
hope of claiming Mrs. Catherick's confidence? Is it wise to proceed to
these extremities, before you have really exhausted all safer and
simpler means of attaining your object? When you told me that Sir
Percival and the Count were the only two people in existence who knew
the exact date of Laura's journey, you forgot, and I forgot, that there
was a third person who must surely know it--I mean Mrs. Rubelle. Would
it not be far easier, and far less dangerous, to insist on a confession
from her, than to force it from Sir Percival?"

"It might be easier," I replied, "but we are not aware of the full
extent of Mrs. Rubelle's connivance and interest in the conspiracy, and
we are therefore not certain that the date has been impressed on her
mind, as it has been assuredly impressed on the minds of Sir Percival
and the Count. It is too late, now, to waste the time on Mrs. Rubelle,
which may be all-important to the discovery of the one assailable point
in Sir Percival's life. Are you thinking a little too seriously,
Marian, of the risk I may run in returning to Hampshire? Are you
beginning to doubt whether Sir Percival Glyde may not in the end be
more than a match for me?"

"He will not be more than your match," she replied decidedly, "because
he will not be helped in resisting you by the impenetrable wickedness
of the Count."

"What has led you to that conclusion?" I