t all the wine over the table. "My sight seems to
be failing me," he muttered to himself, in an odd, muffled voice. He
slowly set the glass up again, refilled it, and drained it once more at
a draught. I began to fear, from his look and manner, that the wine
was getting into his head.

"Pray don't write to Count Fosco," persisted Lady Glyde, more earnestly
than ever.

"Why not, I should like to know?" cried Sir Percival, with a sudden
burst of anger that startled us both. "Where can you stay more
properly in London than at the place your uncle himself chooses for
you--at your aunt's house? Ask Mrs. Michelson."

The arrangement proposed was so unquestionably the right and the proper
one, that I could make no possible objection to it. Much as I
sympathised with Lady Glyde in other respects, I could not sympathise
with her in her unjust prejudices against Count Fosco. I never before
met with any lady of her rank and station who was so lamentably
narrow-minded on the subject of foreigners. Neither her uncle's note
nor Sir Percival's increasing impatience seemed to have the least
effect on her. She still objected to staying a night in London, she
still implored her husband not to write to the Count.

"Drop it!" said Sir Percival, rudely turning his back on us. "If you
haven't sense enough to know what is best for yourself other people
must know it for you. The arrangement is made and there is an end of
it. You are only wanted to do what Miss Halcombe has done for you---"

"Marian?" repeated her Ladyship, in a bewildered manner; "Marian
sleeping in Count Fosco's house!"

"Yes, in Count Fosco's house. She slept there last night to break the
journey, and you are to follow her example, and do what your uncle
tells you. You are to sleep at Fosco's to-morrow night, as your sister
did, to break the journey. Don't throw too many obstacles in my way!
don't make me repent of letting you go at all!"

He started to his feet, and suddenly walked out into the verandah
through the open glass doors.

"Will your ladyship excuse me," I whispered, "if I suggest that we had
better not wait here till Sir Percival comes back? I am very much
afraid he is over-excited with wine."

She consented to leave the room in a weary, absent manner.

As soon as we were safe upstairs again, I did all I could to compose
her ladyship's spirits. I reminded her that Mr. Fairlie's letters to
Miss Halcombe and to herself did certainly sanct