and pencils on the table.
“You are not tired of me yet?” she said. “You are not going away because you are tired of me? I will try to do better — I will try to get well. Are you as fond of me, Walter as you used to be, now I am so pale and thin, and so slow in learning to draw?”
She spoke as a child might have spoken, she showed me her thoughts as a child might have shown them. I waited a few minutes longer — waited to tell her that she was dearer to me now than she had ever been in the past times. “Try to get well again,” I said, encouraging the new hope in the future which I saw dawning in her mind, “try to get well again, for Marian’s sake and for mine.”
“Yes,” she said to herself, returning to her drawing. “I must try, because they are both so fond of me.” She suddenly looked up again. “Don’t be gone long! I can’t get on with my drawing, Walter, when you are not here to help me.”
“I shall soon be back, my darling — soon be back to see how you are getting on.”
My voice faltered a little in spite of me. I forced myself from the room. It was no time, then, for parting with the self-control which might yet serve me in my need before the day was out.
As I opened the door, I beckoned to Marian to follow me to the stairs. It was necessary to prepare her for a result which I felt might sooner or later follow my showing myself openly in the streets.
“I shall, in all probability, be back in a few hours,” I said, “and you will take care, as usual, to let no one inside the doors in my absence. But if anything happens — — ”
“What can happen?” she interposed quickly. “Tell me plainly, Walter, if there is any danger, and I shall know how to meet it.”
“The only danger,” I replied, “is that Sir Percival Glyde may have been recalled to London by the news of Laura’s escape. You are aware that he had me watched before I left England, and that he probably knows me by sight, although I don’t know him?”
She laid her hand on my shoulder and looked at me in anxious silence. I saw she understood the serious risk that threatened us.
“It is not likely,” I said, “that I shall be seen in London again so soon, either by Sir Percival himself or by the persons in his employ. But it is barely possible that an accident may happen. In that case, you will not be alarmed if I fail to return tonight, and you will satisfy any inquiry of Laura’s with the best excuse that you can make for me? If I find the least reason to suspect that I am watched, I will take good care that no spy follows me back to this house. Don’t doubt my return, Marian, however it may be delayed — and fear nothing.”
“Nothing!” she answered firmly. “You shall not regret, Walter, that you have only a woman to help you.” She paused, and detained me for a moment longer. “Take care!” she said, pressing my hand anxiously — ”take care!”
I left her, and set forth to pave the way for discovery — the dark and doubtful way, which began at the lawyer’s door.
IV
No circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the offices of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, in Chancery Lane.
While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration occurred to me which I deeply regretted not having thought of before. The information derived from Marian’s diary made it a matter of certainty that Count Fosco had opened her first letter from Blackwater Park to Mr. Kyrle, and had, by means of his wife, intercepted the second. He was therefore well aware of the address of the office, and he would naturally infer that if Marian wanted advice and assistance, after Laura’s escape from the Asylum, she would apply once more to the experience of Mr. Kyrle. In this case the office in Chancery Lane was the very first place which he and Sir Percival would cause to be watched, and if the same persons were chosen for the purpose who had been employed to follow me, before my departure from England, the fact of my return would in all probability be ascertained on that very day. I had thought, generally, of the chances of my being recognised in the streets, but the special risk connected with the office had never occurred to me until the present moment. It was too late now to repair this unfortunate error in judgment — too late to wish that I had made arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place privately appointed beforehand. I could only resolve to be cautious on leaving Chancery Lane, and not to go straight home again under any circumstances whatever.
After waiting a few minutes I was shown into Mr. Kyrle’s private room. He was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very attentive eye, a very low voice, and a very undemonstrative manner — not (as I judged) ready with his sympathy where strangers were concerned, and not at all easy to disturb in his professional composure. A better man for my purpose could hardly have been found. If he committed himself to a decision at all, and if the decision was favourable, the strength of our case was as good as proved from that moment.
“Before I enter on the business which brings me here,” I said, “I ought to warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that the shortest statement I can make of it may occupy some little time.”
“My time is at Miss Halcombe’s disposal,” he replied. “Where any interests of hers are concerned, I represent my partner personally, as well as professionally. It was his request that I should do so, when he ceased to take an active part in business.”
“May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in England?”
“He is not, he is living with his relatives in Germany. His health has improved, but the period of his return is still uncertain.”
While we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been searching among the papers before him, and he now produced from them a sealed letter. I thought he was about to hand the letter to me, but, apparently changing his mind, he placed it by itself on the table, settled himself in his chair, and silently waited to hear what I had to say.
Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, I entered on my narrative, and put him in full possession of the events which have already been related in these pages.
Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, I startled him out of his professional composure. Expressions of incredulity and surprise, which he could not repress, interrupted me several times before I had done. I persevered, however, to the end, and as soon as I reached it, boldly asked the one important question —
“What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?”
He was too cautious to commit himself to an answer without taking time to recover his self-possession first.
“Before I give my opinion,” he said, “I must beg permission to clear the ground by a few questions.”
He put the questions — sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions, which clearly showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought I was the victim of a delusion, and that he might even have doubted, but for my introduction to him by Miss Halcombe, whether I was not attempting the perpetration of a cunningly-designed fraud.
“Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr. Kyrle?” I asked, when he had done examining me.
“So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you have spoken the truth,” he replied. “I have the highest esteem for Miss Halcombe, and I have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. I will even go farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy’s sake and for argument’s sake, that the identity of Lady Glyde as a living person is a proved fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But you come to me for a legal opinion. As a lawyer, and as a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you, Mr. Hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case.”
“You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle.”
“I will try to put it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady Glyde’s death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. There is her aunt’s testimony to prove that she came to Count Fosco’s house, that she fell ill, and that she died. There is the testimony of the medical certificate to prove the death, and to show that it took place under natural circumstances.