I have paused and rested for a while on my forward course.
It is not, perhaps, time wasted, if the friends who read these pages have paused and rested too.
I took the first opportunity I could find of speaking to Marian in private, and of communicating to her the result of the inquiries which I had made that morning.
She seemed to share the opinion on the subject of my proposed journey to Welmingham, which Mrs. Clements had already expressed to me.
"Surely, Walter," she said, "you hardly know enough yet to give you any hope of claiming Mrs. Catherick's confidence?
Is it wise to proceed to these extremities, before you have really exhausted all safer and simpler means of attaining your object?
When you told me that Sir Percival and the Count were the only two people in existence who knew the exact date of Laura's journey, you forgot, and I forgot, that there was a third person who must surely know it—I mean Mrs. Rubelle.
Would it not be far easier, and far less dangerous, to insist on a confession from her, than to force it from Sir Percival?"
"It might be easier," I replied, "but we are not aware of the full extent of Mrs. Rubelle's connivance and interest in the conspiracy, and we are therefore not certain that the date has been impressed on her mind, as it has been assuredly impressed on the minds of Sir Percival and the Count.
It is too late, now, to waste the time on Mrs. Rubelle, which may be all-important to the discovery of the one assailable point in Sir Percival's life.
Are you thinking a little too seriously, Marian, of the risk I may run in returning to Hampshire?
Are you beginning to doubt whether Sir Percival Glyde may not in the end be more than a match for me?"
"He will not be more than your match," she replied decidedly, "because he will not be helped in resisting you by the impenetrable wickedness of the Count."
"What has led you to that conclusion?" I replied, in some surprise.
"My own knowledge of Sir Percival's obstinacy and impatience of the Count's control," she answered.
"I believe he will insist on meeting you single-handed—just as he insisted at first on acting for himself at Blackwater Park.
The time for suspecting the Count's interference will be the time when you have Sir Percival at your mercy.
His own interests will then be directly threatened, and he will act, Walter, to terrible purpose in his own defence."
"We may deprive him of his weapons beforehand," I said.
"Some of the particulars I have heard from Mrs. Clements may yet be turned to account against him, and other means of strengthening the case may be at our disposal.
There are passages in Mrs. Michelson's narrative which show that the Count found it necessary to place himself in communication with Mr. Fairlie, and there may be circumstances which compromise him in that proceeding.
While I am away, Marian, write to Mr. Fairlie and say that you want an answer describing exactly what passed between the Count and himself, and informing you also of any particulars that may have come to his knowledge at the same time in connection with his niece.
Tell him that the statement you request will, sooner or later, be insisted on, if he shows any reluctance to furnish you with it of his own accord."
"The letter shall be written, Walter.
But are you really determined to go to Welmingham?"
"Absolutely determined.
I will devote the next two days to earning what we want for the week to come, and on the third day I go to Hampshire."
When the third day came I was ready for my journey.
As it was possible that I might be absent for some little time, I arranged with Marian that we were to correspond every day—of course addressing each other by assumed names, for caution's sake.
As long as I heard from her regularly, I should assume that nothing was wrong.
But if the morning came and brought me no letter, my return to London would take place, as a matter of course, by the first train.
I contrived to reconcile Laura to my departure by telling her that I was going to the country to find new purchasers for her drawings and for mine, and I left her occupied and happy.
Marian followed me downstairs to the street door.
"Remember what anxious hearts you leave here," she whispered, as we stood together in the passage.
"Remember all the hopes that hang on your safe return.
If strange things happen to you on this journey—if you and Sir Percival meet——"
"What makes you think we shall meet?" I asked.
"I don't know—I have fears and fancies that I cannot account for.
Laugh at them, Walter, if you like—but, for God's sake, keep your temper if you come in contact with that man!"
"Never fear, Marian!
I answer for my self-control."
With those words we parted.
I walked briskly to the station.
There was a glow of hope in me.
There was a growing conviction in my mind that my journey this time would not be taken in vain.
It was a fine, clear, cold morning.
My nerves were firmly strung, and I felt all the strength of my resolution stirring in me vigorously from head to foot.
As I crossed the railway platform, and looked right and left among the people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them that I knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting out for Hampshire.
But there was something so repellent to me in the idea—something so meanly like the common herd of spies and informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise—that I dismissed the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in my mind.
Even as a mere matter of expediency the proceeding was doubtful in the extreme.