time I mean what my wife
says," replied the impenetrable Italian. "We have changed places,
Percival, for once, and Madame Fosco's opinion is--mine."

Sir Percival crumpled up the paper in his hand, and pushing past the
Count, with another oath, stood between him and the door.

"Have your own way," he said, with baffled rage in his low,
half-whispering tones. "Have your own way--and see what comes of it."
With those words he left the room.

Madame Fosco glanced inquiringly at her husband. "He has gone away
very suddenly," she said. "What does it mean?"

"It means that you and I together have brought the worst-tempered man
in all England to his senses," answered the Count. "It means, Miss
Halcombe, that Lady Glyde is relieved from a gross indignity, and you
from the repetition of an unpardonable insult. Suffer me to express my
admiration of your conduct and your courage at a very trying moment."

"Sincere admiration," suggested Madame Fosco.

"Sincere admiration," echoed the Count.

I had no longer the strength of my first angry resistance to outrage
and injury to support me. My heart-sick anxiety to see Laura, my sense
of my own helpless ignorance of what had happened at the boat-house,
pressed on me with an intolerable weight. I tried to keep up
appearances by speaking to the Count and his wife in the tone which
they had chosen to adopt in speaking to me, but the words failed on my
lips--my breath came short and thick--my eyes looked longingly, in
silence, at the door. The Count, understanding my anxiety, opened it,
went out, and pulled it to after him. At the same time Sir Percival's
heavy step descended the stairs. I heard them whispering together
outside, while Madame Fosco was assuring me, in her calmest and most
conventional manner, that she rejoiced, for all our sakes, that Sir
Percival's conduct had not obliged her husband and herself to leave
Blackwater Park. Before she had done speaking the whispering ceased,
the door opened, and the Count looked in.

"Miss Halcombe," he said, "I am happy to inform you that Lady Glyde is
mistress again in her own house. I thought it might be more agreeable
to you to hear of this change for the better from me than from Sir
Percival, and I have therefore expressly returned to mention it."

"Admirable delicacy!" said Madame Fosco, paying back her husband's
tribute of admiration with the Count's own coin, in the Count's own
manner. He smiled and bowed as if