f Limmeridge
House," had been, in his younger days, the intimate friend and constant
guest of Major Donthorne. Having refreshed his memory by looking back
to old letters and other papers, the Major was in a position to say
positively that Mr. Philip Fairlie was staying at Varneck Hall in the
month of August, eighteen hundred and twenty-six, and that he remained
there for the shooting during the month of September and part of
October following. He then left, to the best of the Major's belief,
for Scotland, and did not return to Varneck Hall till after a lapse of
time, when he reappeared in the character of a newly-married man.

Taken by itself, this statement was, perhaps, of little positive value,
but taken in connection with certain facts, every one of which either
Marian or I knew to be true, it suggested one plain conclusion that
was, to our minds, irresistible.

Knowing, now, that Mr. Philip Fairlie had been at Varneck Hall in the
autumn of eighteen hundred and twenty-six, and that Mrs. Catherick had
been living there in service at the same time, we knew also--first,
that Anne had been born in June, eighteen hundred and twenty-seven;
secondly, that she had always presented an extraordinary personal
resemblance to Laura; and, thirdly, that Laura herself was strikingly
like her father. Mr. Philip Fairlie had been one of the notoriously
handsome men of his time. In disposition entirely unlike his brother
Frederick, he was the spoilt darling of society, especially of the
women--an easy, light-hearted, impulsive, affectionate man--generous to
a fault--constitutionally lax in his principles, and notoriously
thoughtless of moral obligations where women were concerned. Such were
the facts we knew--such was the character of the man. Surely the plain
inference that follows needs no pointing out?

Read by the new light which had now broken upon me, even Mrs.
Catherick's letter, in despite of herself, rendered its mite of
assistance towards strengthening the conclusion at which I had arrived.
She had described Mrs. Fairlie (in writing to me) as "plain-looking,"
and as having "entrapped the handsomest man in England into marrying
her." Both assertions were gratuitously made, and both were false.
Jealous dislike (which, in such a woman as Mrs. Catherick, would
express itself in petty malice rather than not express itself at all)
appeared to me to be the only assignable cause for the peculiar
insolence of her reference to