alcombe--Eleanor, my good wife--which of you
will indulge me with a game at dominoes?"

He addressed us all, but he looked especially at Laura.

She had learnt to feel my dread of offending him, and she accepted his
proposal. It was more than I could have done at that moment. I could
not have sat down at the same table with him for any consideration.
His eyes seemed to reach my inmost soul through the thickening
obscurity of the twilight. His voice trembled along every nerve in my
body, and turned me hot and cold alternately. The mystery and terror
of my dream, which had haunted me at intervals all through the evening,
now oppressed my mind with an unendurable foreboding and an unutterable
awe. I saw the white tomb again, and the veiled woman rising out of it
by Hartright's side. The thought of Laura welled up like a spring in
the depths of my heart, and filled it with waters of bitterness, never,
never known to it before. I caught her by the hand as she passed me on
her way to the table, and kissed her as if that night was to part us
for ever. While they were all gazing at me in astonishment, I ran out
through the low window which was open before me to the ground--ran out
to hide from them in the darkness, to hide even from myself.

We separated that evening later than usual. Towards midnight the
summer silence was broken by the shuddering of a low, melancholy wind
among the trees. We all felt the sudden chill in the atmosphere, but
the Count was the first to notice the stealthy rising of the wind. He
stopped while he was lighting my candle for me, and held up his hand
warningly--

"Listen!" he said. "There will be a change to-morrow."

VII

June 19th.--The events of yesterday warned me to be ready, sooner or
later, to meet the worst. To-day is not yet at an end, and the worst
has come.

Judging by the closest calculation of time that Laura and I could make,
we arrived at the conclusion that Anne Catherick must have appeared at
the boat-house at half-past two o'clock on the afternoon of yesterday.
I accordingly arranged that Laura should just show herself at the
luncheon-table to-day, and should then slip out at the first
opportunity, leaving me behind to preserve appearances, and to follow
her as soon as I could safely do so. This mode of proceeding, if no
obstacles occurred to thwart us, would enable her to be at the
boat-house before half-past two, and (when I left the table, in my
turn) wo