How nice to be so strong! Are
you sure you won't drop it? So glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr.
Hartright. I am such a sufferer that I hardly dare hope to enjoy much
of your society. Would you mind taking great pains not to let the
doors bang, and not to drop the portfolio? Thank you. Gently with the
curtains, please--the slightest noise from them goes through me like a
knife. Yes. GOOD morning!"

When the sea-green curtains were closed, and when the two baize doors
were shut behind me, I stopped for a moment in the little circular hall
beyond, and drew a long, luxurious breath of relief. It was like coming
to the surface of the water after deep diving, to find myself once more
on the outside of Mr. Fairlie's room.

As soon as I was comfortably established for the morning in my pretty
little studio, the first resolution at which I arrived was to turn my
steps no more in the direction of the apartments occupied by the master
of the house, except in the very improbable event of his honouring me
with a special invitation to pay him another visit. Having settled
this satisfactory plan of future conduct in reference to Mr. Fairlie, I
soon recovered the serenity of temper of which my employer's haughty
familiarity and impudent politeness had, for the moment, deprived me.
The remaining hours of the morning passed away pleasantly enough, in
looking over the drawings, arranging them in sets, trimming their
ragged edges, and accomplishing the other necessary preparations in
anticipation of the business of mounting them. I ought, perhaps, to
have made more progress than this; but, as the luncheon-time drew near,
I grew restless and unsettled, and felt unable to fix my attention on
work, even though that work was only of the humble manual kind.

At two o'clock I descended again to the breakfast-room, a little
anxiously. Expectations of some interest were connected with my
approaching reappearance in that part of the house. My introduction to
Miss Fairlie was now close at hand; and, if Miss Halcombe's search
through her mother's letters had produced the result which she
anticipated, the time had come for clearing up the mystery of the woman
in white.

VIII

When I entered the room, I found Miss Halcombe and an elderly lady
seated at the luncheon-table.

The elderly lady, when I was presented to her, proved to be Miss
Fairlie's former governess, Mrs. Vesey, who had been briefly described
to me by my lively com