“Leave it there to-night,” she whispered; “to-morrow may be cruel, and may make me say good-bye to it for ever.”

9th.—­The first event of the morning was not of a kind to raise my spirits—­a letter arrived for me from poor Walter Hartright.  It is the answer to mine describing the manner in which Sir Percival cleared himself of the suspicions raised by Anne Catherick’s letter.  He writes shortly and bitterly about Sir Percival’s explanations, only saying that he has no right to offer an opinion on the conduct of those who are above him.  This is sad, but his occasional references to himself grieve me still more.  He says that the effort to return to his old habits and pursuits grows harder instead of easier to him every day and he implores me, if I have any interest, to exert it to get him employment that will necessitate his absence from England, and take him among new scenes and new people.  I have been made all the readier to comply with this request by a passage at the end of his letter, which has almost alarmed me.

After mentioning that he has neither seen nor heard anything of Anne Catherick, he suddenly breaks off, and hints in the most abrupt, mysterious manner, that he has been perpetually watched and followed by strange men ever since he returned to London.  He acknowledges that he cannot prove this extraordinary suspicion by fixing on any particular persons, but he declares that the suspicion itself is present to him night and day.  This has frightened me, because it looks as if his one fixed idea about Laura was becoming too much for his mind.  I will write immediately to some of my mother’s influential old friends in London, and press his claims on their notice.  Change of scene and change of occupation may really be the salvation of him at this crisis in his life.

Greatly to my relief, Sir Percival sent an apology for not joining us at breakfast.  He had taken an early cup of coffee in his own room, and he was still engaged there in writing letters.  At eleven o’clock, if that hour was convenient, he would do himself the honour of waiting on Miss Fairlie and Miss Halcombe.

My eyes were on Laura’s face while the message was being delivered.  I had found her unaccountably quiet and composed on going into her room in the morning, and so she remained all through breakfast.  Even when we were sitting together on the sofa in her room, waiting for Sir Percival, she still preserved her self-control.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Marian,” was all she said; “I may forget myself with an old friend like Mr. Gilmore, or with a dear sister like you, but I will not forget myself with Sir Percival Glyde.”

I looked at her, and listened to her in silent surprise.  Through all the years of our close intimacy this passive force in her character had been hidden from me—­hidden even from herself, till love found it, and suffering called it forth.

As the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven Sir Percival knocked at the door and came in.  There was suppressed anxiety and agitation in every line of his face.  The dry, sharp cough, which teases him at most times, seemed to be troubling him more incessantly than ever.  He sat down opposite to us at the table, and Laura remained by me.  I looked attentively at them both, and he was the palest of the two.