e nor the other. He was refreshingly dressed in summer
costume--his manner was delightfully self-possessed and quiet--he had a
charming smile. My first impression of him was highly favourable. It
is not creditable to my penetration--as the sequel will show--to
acknowledge this, but I am a naturally candid man, and I DO acknowledge
it notwithstanding.

"Allow me to present myself, Mr. Fairlie," he said. "I come from
Blackwater Park, and I have the honour and the happiness of being
Madame Fosco's husband. Let me take my first and last advantage of
that circumstance by entreating you not to make a stranger of me. I
beg you will not disturb yourself--I beg you will not move."

"You are very good," I replied. "I wish I was strong enough to get up.
Charmed to see you at Limmeridge. Please take a chair."

"I am afraid you are suffering to-day," said the Count.

"As usual," I said. "I am nothing but a bundle of nerves dressed up to
look like a man."

"I have studied many subjects in my time," remarked this sympathetic
person. "Among others the inexhaustible subject of nerves. May I make
a suggestion, at once the simplest and the most profound? Will you let
me alter the light in your room?"

"Certainly--if you will be so very kind as not to let any of it in on
me."

He walked to the window. Such a contrast to dear Marian! so extremely
considerate in all his movements!

"Light," he said, in that delightfully confidential tone which is so
soothing to an invalid, "is the first essential. Light stimulates,
nourishes, preserves. You can no more do without it, Mr. Fairlie, than
if you were a flower. Observe. Here, where you sit, I close the
shutters to compose you. There, where you do NOT sit, I draw up the
blind and let in the invigorating sun. Admit the light into your room
if you cannot bear it on yourself. Light, sir, is the grand decree of
Providence. You accept Providence with your own restrictions. Accept
light on the same terms."

I thought this very convincing and attentive. He had taken me in up to
that point about the light, he had certainly taken me in.

"You see me confused," he said, returning to his place--"on my word of
honour, Mr. Fairlie, you see me confused in your presence."

"Shocked to hear it, I am sure. May I inquire why?"

"Sir, can I enter this room (where you sit a sufferer), and see you
surrounded by these admirable objects of Art, without discovering that
you are a man