The Woman in White - The Original Classic Edition. Collins Wilkie

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       I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes rested on the last sentence of the letter: "Your mother's daughter has a tender place in my heart--for your mother was my first, my best, my only friend." Those words and the doubt which had just escaped me as to the sanity of the writer of the letter, acting together on my mind, suggested an idea, which I was literally afraid to express openly, or even to encourage secretly. I began to doubt whether my own faculties were not in danger of losing their balance. It seemed almost like a monomania to be tracing back everything strange that happened, everything unexpected that was said, always to the same hidden source and the same sinister influence. I resolved, this time, in defence of my own courage and my own sense, to come to no decision that plain fact did not warrant, and to turn my back resolutely on everything that tempted me in the shape of surmise.

       "If we have any chance of tracing the person who has written this," I said, returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, "there can be no harm in seizing our opportunity the moment it offers. I think we ought to speak to the gardener again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our inquiries in the village. But first let me ask a question. You mentioned just now the alternative of consulting Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow. Is there no possibility of communicating with him earlier? Why not

       to-day?"

       "I can only explain," replied Miss Halcombe, "by entering into certain particulars, connected with my sister's marriage-engagement, which I did not think it necessary or desirable to mention to you this morning. One of Sir Percival Glyde's objects in coming here

       on Monday, is to fix the period of his marriage, which has hitherto been left quite unsettled. He is anxious that the event should take

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       place before the end of the year."

       "Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?" I asked eagerly.

       "She has no suspicion of it, and after what has happened, I shall not take the responsibility upon myself of enlightening her. Sir Percival has only mentioned his views to Mr. Fairlie, who has told me himself that he is ready and anxious, as Laura's guardian, to forward them. He has written to London, to the family solicitor, Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore happens to be away in Glasgow on business, and he has replied by proposing to stop at Limmeridge House on his way back to town. He will arrive to-morrow, and will stay with us a few days, so as to allow Sir Percival time to plead his own cause. If he succeeds, Mr. Gilmore will then return to London, taking with him his instructions for my sister's marriage-settlement. You understand now, Mr. Hartright, why I speak of waiting to take legal advice until to-morrow? Mr. Gilmore is the old and tried friend of two generations of Fairlies, and we can trust him, as we could trust no one else."

       The marriage-settlement! The mere hearing of those two words stung me with a jealous despair that was poison to my higher and better instincts. I began to think--it is hard to confess this, but I must suppress nothing from beginning to end of the terrible story that I now stand committed to reveal--I began to think, with a hateful eagerness of hope, of the vague charges against Sir Percival Glyde which the anonymous letter contained. What if those wild accusations rested on a foundation of truth? What if their truth could be proved before the fatal words of consent were spoken, and the marriage-settlement was drawn? I have tried to think since, that the feeling which then animated me began and ended in pure devotion to Miss Fairlie's interests, but I have never succeeded in deceiving myself into believing it, and I must not now attempt to deceive others. The feeling began and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless hatred of the man who was to marry her.

       "If we are to find out anything," I said, speaking under the new influence which was now directing me, "we had better not let another minute slip by us unemployed. I can only suggest, once more, the propriety of questioning the gardener a second time, and of inquiring in the village immediately afterwards."

       "I think I may be of help to you in both cases," said Miss Halcombe, rising. "Let us go, Mr. Hartright, at once, and do the best we can together."

       I had the door in my hand to open it for her--but I stopped, on a sudden, to ask an important question before we set forth. "One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter," I said, "contains some sentences of minute personal description. Sir Percival

       Glyde's name is not mentioned, I know--but does that description at all resemble him?"

       "Accurately--even in stating his age to be forty-five----"

       Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! Men of his age married wives of her age every day--and experience had shown those marriages to be often the happiest ones. I knew that--and yet even the mention of his age, when I contrasted it with hers, added to my blind hatred and distrust of him.

       "Accurately," Miss Halcombe continued, "even to the scar on his right hand, which is the scar of a wound that he received years since when he was travelling in Italy. There can be no doubt that every peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the letter."

       "Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember right?"

       "Yes, and mentioned correctly. He treats it lightly himself, though it sometimes makes his friends anxious about him." "I suppose no whispers have ever been heard against his character?"

       "Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough to let that infamous letter influence you?" I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that it HAD influenced me.

       "I hope not," I answered confusedly. "Perhaps I had no right to ask the question."

       "I am not sorry you asked it," she said, "for it enables me to do justice to Sir Percival's reputation. Not a whisper, Mr. Hartright,

       has ever reached me, or my family, against him. He has fought successfully two contested elections, and has come out of the ordeal

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       unscathed. A man who can do that, in England, is a man whose character is established."

       I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had not convinced me. If the recording angel had come down from

       heaven to confirm her, and had opened his book to my mortal eyes, the recording angel would not have convinced me.

       We found the gardener at work as usual. No amount of questioning could extract a single answer of any importance from the lad's impenetrable stupidity. The woman who had given him the letter was an elderly woman; she had not spoken a word to him, and she had gone away towards the south in a great hurry. That was all the gardener could tell us.

       The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went next.

       XII

       Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. But nothing came of them. Three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her, these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of their unhelpful and unob-servant neighbours.

       The course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to the end of the village at which the schools established by Mrs. Fairlie were situated. As we passed the side of the building appropriated to the use of the boys, I suggested the propriety of making a last inquiry of the schoolmaster, whom we might presume to be, in virtue of his office, the most intelligent man in the place.

       "I am СКАЧАТЬ