writing materials (which I had given the
servant instructions never to meddle with) were scattered over the
table much as usual. The only circumstance in connection with them
that at all struck me was that the seal lay tidily in the tray with the
pencils and the wax. It was not in my careless habits (I am sorry to
say) to put it there, neither did I remember putting it there. But as
I could not call to mind, on the other hand, where else I had thrown it
down, and as I was also doubtful whether I might not for once have laid
it mechanically in the right place, I abstained from adding to the
perplexity with which the day's events had filled my mind by troubling
it afresh about a trifle. I locked the door, put the key in my pocket,
and went downstairs.

Madame Fosco was alone in the hall looking at the weather-glass.

"Still falling," she said. "I am afraid we must expect more rain."

Her face was composed again to its customary expression and its
customary colour. But the hand with which she pointed to the dial of
the weather-glass still trembled.

Could she have told her husband already that she had overheard Laura
reviling him, in my company, as a "spy?" My strong suspicion that she
must have told him, my irresistible dread (all the more overpowering
from its very vagueness) of the consequences which might follow, my
fixed conviction, derived from various little self-betrayals which
women notice in each other, that Madame Fosco, in spite of her
well-assumed external civility, had not forgiven her niece for
innocently standing between her and the legacy of ten thousand
pounds--all rushed upon my mind together, all impelled me to speak in
the vain hope of using my own influence and my own powers of persuasion
for the atonement of Laura's offence.

"May I trust to your kindness to excuse me, Madame Fosco, if I venture
to speak to you on an exceedingly painful subject?"

She crossed her hands in front of her and bowed her head solemnly,
without uttering a word, and without taking her eyes off mine for a
moment.

"When you were so good as to bring me back my handkerchief," I went on,
"I am very, very much afraid you must have accidentally heard Laura say
something which I am unwilling to repeat, and which I will not attempt
to defend. I will only venture to hope that you have not thought it of
sufficient importance to be mentioned to the Count?"

"I think it of no importance whatever," said Madame Fosco shar