As soon as Marian Halcombe recovered, the supposed death of her half-sister was broken to her.  Recollecting the conversation she had overheard just before she was taken ill, she had grave suspicions as to the cause of Laura’s death, and immediately instituted inquiries.  In the pursuit of these inquiries she visited Anne Catherick in the asylum, and her joy in discovering Laura there instead of the supposed Anne Catherick was almost overwhelming.  By bribing one of the nurses, she secured Laura’s freedom, and travelled with her to Limmeridge to establish her identity.  To her disgust and amazement Frederick Fairlie refused to accept her statement, or to believe that Laura was other than Anne Catherick.  Count Fosco had visited and prepared him.

At this juncture I returned from South America, and, hearing of the death of the girl I loved, at once set off to Limmeridge on a sad pilgrimage to her grave.  While I was reading the tragic narrative on the tombstone, two women approached.  Even as the words, “Sacred to the memory of Laura, Lady Glyde,” swam before my eyes, one of them lifted her veil.  It was Laura.

In a poor quarter of London I took up my abode with Laura and Miss Halcombe, and while my poor Laura slowly recovered her health and spirits I devoted myself to the support of the little household, and to unravelling the mystery which surrounded the events I have here recorded.  From Mrs. Clements, who had befriended poor Anne Catherick, I learnt that Mrs. Catherick had had secret meetings years before with Sir Percival Glyde in the vestry of the church at Welmingham.

To establish the exact relations between Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival, I visited Welmingham, pursued by the baronet’s agents.  My interview with Mrs. Catherick satisfied me that Sir Percival was not the father of Anne, and that their secret meeting in the vestry had reference to some object other than romance.  The contemptuous way in which Mrs. Catherick spoke of Sir Percival’s mother set me thinking.  I visited the vestry where the meetings had taken place, and examining the register, discovered at the bottom of one of the pages, compressed into a very small space, the entry of Sir Felix Glyde’s marriage with the mother of Sir Percival.  Hearing from the sexton that an old lawyer in the neighbouring town had a copy of this register, I visited him, and found that his copy did not contain the entry of this marriage.

Here was the secret at last!  Sir Percival was the illegitimate son of his father, and had forged this entry of his father’s marriage in order to secure the title and estates.  Mrs. Catherick was the only person who knew of the plot.  In a fit of ill-temper she had told her daughter Anne that she possessed a secret that could ruin the baronet.  Anne herself never knew the secret, but foolishly repeated her mother’s words to Sir Percival, and the price of her temerity was incarceration in a private asylum.