y and solemn manner, from a
turret over the centre of the house, which I saw when I came in. A
large dog has been woke, apparently by the sound of the bell, and is
howling and yawning drearily, somewhere round a corner. I hear echoing
footsteps in the passages below, and the iron thumping of bolts and
bars at the house door. The servants are evidently going to bed.
Shall I follow their example?

No, I am not half sleepy enough. Sleepy, did I say? I feel as if I
should never close my eyes again. The bare anticipation of seeing that
dear face, and hearing that well-known voice to-morrow, keeps me in a
perpetual fever of excitement. If I only had the privileges of a man,
I would order out Sir Percival's best horse instantly, and tear away on
a night-gallop, eastward, to meet the rising sun--a long, hard, heavy,
ceaseless gallop of hours and hours, like the famous highwayman's ride
to York. Being, however, nothing but a woman, condemned to patience,
propriety, and petticoats for life, I must respect the house-keeper's
opinions, and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way.

Reading is out of the question--I can't fix my attention on books. Let
me try if I can write myself into sleepiness and fatigue. My journal
has been very much neglected of late. What can I recall--standing, as
I now do, on the threshold of a new life--of persons and events, of
chances and changes, during the past six months--the long, weary,
empty interval since Laura's wedding-day?

Walter Hartright is uppermost in my memory, and he passes first in the
shadowy procession of my absent friends. I received a few lines from
him, after the landing of the expedition in Honduras, written more
cheerfully and hopefully than he has written yet. A month or six weeks
later I saw an extract from an American newspaper, describing the
departure of the adventurers on their inland journey. They were last
seen entering a wild primeval forest, each man with his rifle on his
shoulder and his baggage at his back. Since that time, civilisation
has lost all trace of them. Not a line more have I received from
Walter, not a fragment of news from the expedition has appeared in any
of the public journals.

The same dense, disheartening obscurity hangs over the fate and
fortunes of Anne Catherick, and her companion, Mrs. Clements. Nothing
whatever has been heard of either of them. Whether they are in the
country or out of it, whether they are livin