r, and was told that "Lady Glyde"
required his immediate services. To my infinite relief, he was a
capable man. I represented my visitor to him as a person of weak
intellect, and subject to delusions, and I arranged that no nurse but
my wife should watch in the sick-room. The unhappy woman was too ill,
however, to cause any anxiety about what she might say. The one dread
which now oppressed me was the dread that the false Lady Glyde might
die before the true Lady Glyde arrived in London.

I had written a note in the morning to Madame Rubelle, telling her to
join me at her husband's house on the evening of Friday the 26th, with
another note to Percival, warning him to show his wife her uncle's
letter of invitation, to assert that Marian had gone on before her, and
to despatch her to town by the midday train, on the 26th, also. On
reflection I had felt the necessity, in Anne Catherick's state of
health, of precipitating events, and of having Lady Glyde at my
disposal earlier than I had originally contemplated. What fresh
directions, in the terrible uncertainty of my position, could I now
issue? I could do nothing but trust to chance and the doctor. My
emotions expressed themselves in pathetic apostrophes, which I was just
self-possessed enough to couple, in the hearing of other people, with
the name of "Lady Glyde." In all other respects Fosco, on that
memorable day, was Fosco shrouded in total eclipse.

She passed a bad night, she awoke worn out, but later in the day she
revived amazingly. My elastic spirits revived with her. I could
receive no answers from Percival and Madame Rubelle till the morning of
the next day, the 26th. In anticipation of their following my
directions, which, accident apart, I knew they would do, I went to
secure a fly to fetch Lady Glyde from the railway, directing it to be
at my house on the 26th, at two o'clock. After seeing the order
entered in the book, I went on to arrange matters with Monsieur
Rubelle. I also procured the services of two gentlemen who could
furnish me with the necessary certificates of lunacy. One of them I
knew personally--the other was known to Monsieur Rubelle. Both were
men whose vigorous minds soared superior to narrow scruples--both were
labouring under temporary embarrassments--both believed in ME.

It was past five o'clock in the afternoon before I returned from the
performance of these duties. When I got back Anne Catherick was dead.
Dead on the 2