certain peculiarities in the conduct of Sir Percival
and the Count, which have sent me to my bed feeling very anxious and
uneasy about Anne Catherick, and about the results which to-morrow may
produce.

I know enough by this time, to be sure, that the aspect of Sir Percival
which is the most false, and which, therefore, means the worst, is his
polite aspect. That long walk with his friend had ended in improving
his manners, especially towards his wife. To Laura's secret surprise
and to my secret alarm, he called her by her Christian name, asked if
she had heard lately from her uncle, inquired when Mrs. Vesey was to
receive her invitation to Blackwater, and showed her so many other
little attentions that he almost recalled the days of his hateful
courtship at Limmeridge House. This was a bad sign to begin with, and
I thought it more ominous still that he should pretend after dinner to
fall asleep in the drawing-room, and that his eyes should cunningly
follow Laura and me when he thought we neither of us suspected him. I
have never had any doubt that his sudden journey by himself took him to
Welmingham to question Mrs. Catherick--but the experience of to-night
has made me fear that the expedition was not undertaken in vain, and
that he has got the information which he unquestionably left us to
collect. If I knew where Anne Catherick was to be found, I would be up
to-morrow with sunrise and warn her.

While the aspect under which Sir Percival presented himself to-night
was unhappily but too familiar to me, the aspect under which the Count
appeared was, on the other hand, entirely new in my experience of him.
He permitted me, this evening, to make his acquaintance, for the first
time, in the character of a Man of Sentiment--of sentiment, as I
believe, really felt, not assumed for the occasion.

For instance, he was quiet and subdued--his eyes and his voice
expressed a restrained sensibility. He wore (as if there was some
hidden connection between his showiest finery and his deepest feeling)
the most magnificent waistcoat he has yet appeared in--it was made of
pale sea-green silk, and delicately trimmed with fine silver braid.
His voice sank into the tenderest inflections, his smile expressed a
thoughtful, fatherly admiration, whenever he spoke to Laura or to me.
He pressed his wife's hand under the table when she thanked him for
trifling little attentions at dinner. He took wine with her. "Your
health and happine