integrity, discretion, and accurate knowledge of all her affairs, and with her full approval I sat down at once to write the letter, I began by stating our position to Mr. Kyrle exactly as it was, and then asked for his advice in return, expressed in plain, downright terms which he could comprehend without any danger of misinterpretations and mistakes.  My letter was as short as I could possibly make it, and was, I hope, unencumbered by needless apologies and needless details.

Just as I was about to put the address on the envelope an obstacle was discovered by Laura, which in the effort and preoccupation of writing had escaped my mind altogether.

“How are we to get the answer in time?” she asked.  “Your letter will not be delivered in London before to-morrow morning, and the post will not bring the reply here till the morning after.”

The only way of overcoming this difficulty was to have the answer brought to us from the lawyer’s office by a special messenger.  I wrote a postscript to that effect, begging that the messenger might be despatched with the reply by the eleven o’clock morning train, which would bring him to our station at twenty minutes past one, and so enable him to reach Blackwater Park by two o’clock at the latest.  He was to be directed to ask for me, to answer no questions addressed to him by any one else, and to deliver his letter into no hands but mine.

“In case Sir Percival should come back to-morrow before two o’clock,” I said to Laura, “the wisest plan for you to adopt is to be out in the grounds all the morning with your book or your work, and not to appear at the house till the messenger has had time to arrive with the letter.  I will wait here for him all the morning, to guard against any misadventures or mistakes.  By following this arrangement I hope and believe we shall avoid being taken by surprise.  Let us go down to the drawing-room now.  We may excite suspicion if we remain shut up together too long.”

“Suspicion?” she repeated.  “Whose suspicion can we excite, now that Sir Percival has left the house?  Do you mean Count Fosco?”

“Perhaps I do, Laura.”

“You are beginning to dislike him as much as I do, Marian.”

“No, not to dislike him.  Dislike is always more or less associated with contempt—­I can see nothing in the Count to despise.”

“You are not afraid of him, are you?”

“Perhaps I am—­a little.”

“Afraid of him, after his interference in our favour to-day!”

“Yes.  I am more afraid of his interference than I am of Sir
Percival’s violence.  Remember what I said to you in the library. 
Whatever you do, Laura, don’t make an enemy of the Count!”

We went downstairs.  Laura entered the drawing-room, while I proceeded across the hall, with my letter in my hand, to put it into the post-bag, which hung against the wall opposite to me.

The house door was open, and as I crossed past it, I saw Count Fosco and his wife standing talking together on the steps outside, with their faces turned towards me.