ng this sudden change of place to some
threatened annoyance on the part of Count Fosco?"

"Perfectly right," she said. "I saw him yesterday, and worse than
that, Walter--I spoke to him."

"Spoke to him? Did he know where we lived? Did he come to the house?"

"He did. To the house--but not upstairs. Laura never saw him--Laura
suspects nothing. I will tell you how it happened: the danger, I
believe and hope, is over now. Yesterday, I was in the sitting-room,
at our old lodgings. Laura was drawing at the table, and I was walking
about and setting things to rights. I passed the window, and as I
passed it, looked out into the street. There, on the opposite side of
the way, I saw the Count, with a man talking to him----"

"Did he notice you at the window?"

"No--at least, I thought not. I was too violently startled to be quite
sure."

"Who was the other man? A stranger?"

"Not a stranger, Walter. As soon as I could draw my breath again, I
recognised him. He was the owner of the Lunatic Asylum."

"Was the Count pointing out the house to him?"

"No, they were talking together as if they had accidentally met in the
street. I remained at the window looking at them from behind the
curtain. If I had turned round, and if Laura had seen my face at that
moment----Thank God, she was absorbed over her drawing! They soon
parted. The man from the Asylum went one way, and the Count the other.
I began to hope they were in the street by chance, till I saw the Count
come back, stop opposite to us again, take out his card-case and
pencil, write something, and then cross the road to the shop below us.
I ran past Laura before she could see me, and said I had forgotten
something upstairs. As soon as I was out of the room I went down to
the first landing and waited--I was determined to stop him if he tried
to come upstairs. He made no such attempt. The girl from the shop
came through the door into the passage, with his card in her hand--a
large gilt card with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines
underneath in pencil: 'Dear lady' (yes! the villain could address me in
that way still)--'dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter
serious to us both.' If one can think at all, in serious difficulties,
one thinks quick. I felt directly that it might be a fatal mistake to
leave myself and to leave you in the dark, where such a man as the
Count was concerned. I felt that the doubt of what he might do, in
your