t she thought of going to
the little inn in the village, the landlady of which was a respectable
woman, known to the servants at Blackwater Park. The next morning, by
leaving early, she might get back to her friends in Cumberland without
stopping in London, where she was a total stranger.

I felt directly that Fanny's departure offered us a safe means of
communication with London and with Limmeridge House, of which it might
be very important to avail ourselves. Accordingly, I told her that she
might expect to hear from her mistress or from me in the course of the
evening, and that she might depend on our both doing all that lay in
our power to help her, under the trial of leaving us for the present.
Those words said, I shook hands with her and went upstairs.

The door which led to Laura's room was the door of an ante-chamber
opening on to the passage. When I tried it, it was bolted on the
inside.

I knocked, and the door was opened by the same heavy, overgrown
housemaid whose lumpish insensibility had tried my patience so severely
on the day when I found the wounded dog.

I had, since that time, discovered that her name was Margaret Porcher,
and that she was the most awkward, slatternly, and obstinate servant in
the house.

On opening the door she instantly stepped out to the threshold, and
stood grinning at me in stolid silence.

"Why do you stand there?" I said. "Don't you see that I want to come
in?"

"Ah, but you mustn't come in," was the answer, with another and a
broader grin still.

"How dare you talk to me in that way? Stand back instantly!"

She stretched out a great red hand and arm on each side of her, so as
to bar the doorway, and slowly nodded her addle head at me.

"Master's orders," she said, and nodded again.

I had need of all my self-control to warn me against contesting the
matter with HER, and to remind me that the next words I had to say must
be addressed to her master. I turned my back on her, and instantly
went downstairs to find him. My resolution to keep my temper under all
the irritations that Sir Percival could offer was, by this time, as
completely forgotten--I say so to my shame--as if I had never made it.
It did me good, after all I had suffered and suppressed in that
house--it actually did me good to feel how angry I was.

The drawing-room and the breakfast-room were both empty. I went on to
the library, and there I found Sir Percival, the Count, and Madame
Fosco. T