, which the Count had pledged himself to examine. The
first object that I saw was the red spark again travelling out into the
night from under the verandah, moving away towards my window, waiting a
moment, and then returning to the place from which it had set out.

"The devil take your restlessness! When do you mean to sit down?"
growled Sir Percival's voice beneath me.

"Ouf! how hot it is!" said the Count, sighing and puffing wearily.

His exclamation was followed by the scraping of the garden chairs on
the tiled pavement under the verandah--the welcome sound which told me
they were going to sit close at the window as usual. So far the chance
was mine. The clock in the turret struck the quarter to twelve as they
settled themselves in their chairs. I heard Madame Fosco through the
open window yawning, and saw her shadow pass once more across the white
field of the blind.

Meanwhile, Sir Percival and the Count began talking together below, now
and then dropping their voices a little lower than usual, but never
sinking them to a whisper. The strangeness and peril of my situation,
the dread, which I could not master, of Madame Fosco's lighted window,
made it difficult, almost impossible, for me, at first, to keep my
presence of mind, and to fix my attention solely on the conversation
beneath. For some minutes I could only succeed in gathering the
general substance of it. I understood the Count to say that the one
window alight was his wife's, that the ground floor of the house was
quite clear, and that they might now speak to each other without fear
of accidents. Sir Percival merely answered by upbraiding his friend
with having unjustifiably slighted his wishes and neglected his
interests all through the day. The Count thereupon defended himself by
declaring that he had been beset by certain troubles and anxieties
which had absorbed all his attention, and that the only safe time to
come to an explanation was a time when they could feel certain of being
neither interrupted nor overheard. "We are at a serious crisis in our
affairs, Percival," he said, "and if we are to decide on the future at
all, we must decide secretly to-night."

That sentence of the Count's was the first which my attention was ready
enough to master exactly as it was spoken. From this point, with
certain breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed breathlessly
on the conversation, and I followed it word for word.

"Crisis?" repeate