o out? No matter if she had. The
letters were safe now in Fanny's hands.

"Come and have a smoke, Fosco," said Sir Percival, rising, with another
uneasy look at his friend.

"With pleasure, Percival, when the ladies have gone to bed," replied
the Count.

"Excuse me, Countess, if I set you the example of retiring," I said.
"The only remedy for such a headache as mine is going to bed."

I took my leave. There was the same insolent smile on the woman's face
when I shook hands with her. Sir Percival paid no attention to me. He
was looking impatiently at Madame Fosco, who showed no signs of leaving
the room with me. The Count smiled to himself behind his book. There
was yet another delay to that quiet talk with Sir Percival--and the
Countess was the impediment this time.

IX

June 19th.--Once safely shut into my own room, I opened these pages,
and prepared to go on with that part of the day's record which was
still left to write.

For ten minutes or more I sat idle, with the pen in my hand, thinking
over the events of the last twelve hours. When I at last addressed
myself to my task, I found a difficulty in proceeding with it which I
had never experienced before. In spite of my efforts to fix my
thoughts on the matter in hand, they wandered away with the strangest
persistency in the one direction of Sir Percival and the Count, and all
the interest which I tried to concentrate on my journal centred instead
in that private interview between them which had been put off all
through the day, and which was now to take place in the silence and
solitude of the night.

In this perverse state of my mind, the recollection of what had passed
since the morning would not come back to me, and there was no resource
but to close my journal and to get away from it for a little while.

I opened the door which led from my bedroom into my sitting-room, and
having passed through, pulled it to again, to prevent any accident in
case of draught with the candle left on the dressing-table. My
sitting-room window was wide open, and I leaned out listlessly to look
at the night.

It was dark and quiet. Neither moon nor stars were visible. There was
a smell like rain in the still, heavy air, and I put my hand out of
window. No. The rain was only threatening, it had not come yet.

I remained leaning on the window-sill for nearly a quarter of an hour,
looking out absently into the black darkness, and hearing nothing,
except no