“I ought surely to know what I am signing, Sir Percival, before I write my name?”

“Nonsense!  What have women to do with business?  I tell you again, you can’t understand it.”

“At any rate, let me try to understand it.  Whenever Mr. Gilmore had any business for me to do, he always explained it first, and I always understood him.”

“I dare say he did.  He was your servant, and was obliged to explain.  I am your husband, and am not obliged.  How much longer do you mean to keep me here?  I tell you again, there is no time for reading anything—­the dog-cart is waiting at the door.  Once for all, will you sign or will you not?”

She still had the pen in her hand, but she made no approach to signing her name with it.

“If my signature pledges me to anything,” she said, “surely I have some claim to know what that pledge is?”

He lifted up the parchment, and struck it angrily on the table.

“Speak out!” he said.  “You were always famous for telling the truth.  Never mind Miss Halcombe, never mind Fosco—­say, in plain terms, you distrust me.”

The Count took one of his hands out of his belt and laid it on Sir Percival’s shoulder.  Sir Percival shook it off irritably.  The Count put it on again with unruffled composure.

“Control your unfortunate temper, Percival,” he said “Lady Glyde is right.”

“Right!” cried Sir Percival.  “A wife right in distrusting her husband!”

“It is unjust and cruel to accuse me of distrusting you,” said Laura.  “Ask Marian if I am not justified in wanting to know what this writing requires of me before I sign it.”

“I won’t have any appeals made to Miss Halcombe,” retorted Sir Percival.  “Miss Halcombe has nothing to do with the matter.”

I had not spoken hitherto, and I would much rather not have spoken now.  But the expression of distress in Laura’s face when she turned it towards me, and the insolent injustice of her husband’s conduct, left me no other alternative than to give my opinion, for her sake, as soon as I was asked for it.

“Excuse me, Sir Percival,” I said—­“but as one of the witnesses to the signature, I venture to think that I have something to do with the matter.  Laura’s objection seems to me a perfectly fair one, and speaking for myself only, I cannot assume the responsibility of witnessing her signature, unless she first understands what the writing is which you wish her to sign.”

“A cool declaration, upon my soul!” cried Sir Percival.  “The next time you invite yourself to a man’s house, Miss Halcombe, I recommend you not to repay his hospitality by taking his wife’s side against him in a matter that doesn’t concern you.”

I started to my feet as suddenly as if he had struck me.  If I had been a man, I would have knocked him down on the threshold of his own door, and have left his house, never on any earthly consideration to enter it again.  But I was only a woman—­and I loved his wife so dearly!