ughing about?"

There was no answer, and no sound of any kind. The Count was laughing
in his smooth silent internal way.

"What are you laughing about?" reiterated Sir Percival.

"Perhaps at my own fancies, my good friend. Allow me my Italian
humour--do I not come of the illustrious nation which invented the
exhibition of Punch? Well, well, well, I shall know Anne Catherick when
I see her--and so enough for to-night. Make your mind easy, Percival.
Sleep, my son, the sleep of the just, and see what I will do for you
when daylight comes to help us both. I have my projects and my plans
here in my big head. You shall pay those bills and find Anne
Catherick--my sacred word of honour on it, but you shall! Am I a friend
to be treasured in the best corner of your heart, or am I not? Am I
worth those loans of money which you so delicately reminded me of a
little while since? Whatever you do, never wound me in my sentiments
any more. Recognise them, Percival! imitate them, Percival! I forgive
you again--I shake hands again. Good-night!"

Not another word was spoken. I heard the Count close the library door.
I heard Sir Percival barring up the window-shutters. It had been
raining, raining all the time. I was cramped by my position and
chilled to the bones. When I first tried to move, the effort was so
painful to me that I was obliged to desist. I tried a second time, and
succeeded in rising to my knees on the wet roof.

As I crept to the wall, and raised myself against it, I looked back,
and saw the window of the Count's dressing-room gleam into light. My
sinking courage flickered up in me again, and kept my eyes fixed on his
window, as I stole my way back, step by step, past the wall of the
house.

The clock struck the quarter after one, when I laid my hands on the
window-sill of my own room. I had seen nothing and heard nothing which
could lead me to suppose that my retreat had been discovered.

X

June 20th.--Eight o'clock. The sun is shining in a clear sky. I have
not been near my bed--I have not once closed my weary wakeful eyes.
From the same window at which I looked out into the darkness of last
night, I look out now at the bright stillness of the morning.

I count the hours that have passed since I escaped to the shelter of
this room by my own sensations--and those hours seem like weeks.

How short a time, and yet how long to ME--since I sank down in the
darkness, here, on the floor--dren