the room) had provisions, and all other necessaries, together
with the means of heating water, broth, and so on, without kindling a
fire, placed at her disposal during the few days of her imprisonment
with the sick lady. She had declined to answer the questions which
Miss Halcombe naturally put, but had not, in other respects, treated
her with unkindness or neglect. The disgrace of lending herself to a
vile deception is the only disgrace with which I can conscientiously
charge Mrs. Rubelle.

I need write no particulars (and I am relieved to know it) of the
effect produced on Miss Halcombe by the news of Lady Glyde's departure,
or by the far more melancholy tidings which reached us only too soon
afterwards at Blackwater Park. In both cases I prepared her mind
beforehand as gently and as carefully as possible, having the doctor's
advice to guide me, in the last case only, through Mr. Dawson's being
too unwell to come to the house for some days after I had sent for him.
It was a sad time, a time which it afflicts me to think of or to write
of now. The precious blessings of religious consolation which I
endeavoured to convey were long in reaching Miss Halcombe's heart, but
I hope and believe they came home to her at last. I never left her till
her strength was restored. The train which took me away from that
miserable house was the train which took her away also. We parted very
mournfully in London. I remained with a relative at Islington, and she
went on to Mr. Fairlie's house in Cumberland.

I have only a few lines more to write before I close this painful
statement. They are dictated by a sense of duty.

In the first place, I wish to record my own personal conviction that no
blame whatever, in connection with the events which I have now related,
attaches to Count Fosco. I am informed that a dreadful suspicion has
been raised, and that some very serious constructions are placed upon
his lordship's conduct. My persuasion of the Count's innocence
remains, however, quite unshaken. If he assisted Sir Percival in
sending me to Torquay, he assisted under a delusion, for which, as a
foreigner and a stranger, he was not to blame. If he was concerned in
bringing Mrs. Rubelle to Blackwater Park, it was his misfortune and not
his fault, when that foreign person was base enough to assist a
deception planned and carried out by the master of the house. I
protest, in the interests of morality, against blame being gratuitou