absence, would be ten times more trying to me if I declined to see
him than if I consented. 'Ask the gentleman to wait in the shop,' I
said. 'I will be with him in a moment.' I ran upstairs for my bonnet,
being determined not to let him speak to me indoors. I knew his deep
ringing voice, and I was afraid Laura might hear it, even in the shop.
In less than a minute I was down again in the passage, and had opened
the door into the street. He came round to meet me from the shop.
There he was in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly
smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great
size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold knob to
it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me the moment I
set eyes on him. All the old loathing crept and crawled through me,
when he took off his hat with a flourish and spoke to me, as if we had
parted on the friendliest terms hardly a day since."

"You remember what he said?"

"I can't repeat it, Walter. You shall know directly what he said about
you---but I can't repeat what he said to me. It was worse than the
polite insolence of his letter. My hands tingled to strike him, as if
I had been a man! I only kept them quiet by tearing his card to pieces
under my shawl. Without saying a word on my side, I walked away from
the house (for fear of Laura seeing us), and he followed, protesting
softly all the way. In the first by-street I turned, and asked him
what he wanted with me. He wanted two things. First, if I had no
objection, to express his sentiments. I declined to hear them.
Secondly, to repeat the warning in his letter. I asked, what occasion
there was for repeating it. He bowed and smiled, and said he would
explain. The explanation exactly confirmed the fears I expressed before
you left us. I told you, if you remember, that Sir Percival would be
too headstrong to take his friend's advice where you were concerned,
and that there was no danger to be dreaded from the Count till his own
interests were threatened, and he was roused into acting for himself?"

"I recollect, Marian."

"Well, so it has really turned out. The Count offered his advice, but
it was refused. Sir Percival would only take counsel of his own
violence, his own obstinacy, and his own hatred of you. The Count let
him have his way, first privately ascertaining, in case of his own
interests being threatened next, where we lived. You were followed