I went out, as I had proposed, to meet the messenger with my letter from London at the lodge gate.  On the stairs I saw no one.  In the hall I heard the Count still exercising his birds.  But on crossing the quadrangle outside, I passed Madame Fosco, walking by herself in her favourite circle, round and round the great fish-pond.  I at once slackened my pace, so as to avoid all appearance of being in a hurry, and even went the length, for caution’s sake, of inquiring if she thought of going out before lunch.  She smiled at me in the friendliest manner—­said she preferred remaining near the house, nodded pleasantly, and re-entered the hall.  I looked back, and saw that she had closed the door before I had opened the wicket by the side of the carriage gates.

In less than a quarter of an hour I reached the lodge.

The lane outside took a sudden turn to the left, ran on straight for a hundred yards or so, and then took another sharp turn to the right to join the high-road.  Between these two turns, hidden from the lodge on one side, and from the way to the station on the other, I waited, walking backwards and forwards.  High hedges were on either side of me, and for twenty minutes, by my watch, I neither saw nor heard anything.  At the end of that time the sound of a carriage caught my ear, and I was met, as I advanced towards the second turning, by a fly from the railway.  I made a sign to the driver to stop.  As he obeyed me a respectable-looking man put his head out of the window to see what was the matter.

“I beg your pardon,” I said, “but am I right in supposing that you are going to Blackwater Park?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“With a letter for any one?”

“With a letter for Miss Halcombe, ma’am.”

“You may give me the letter.  I am Miss Halcombe.”

The man touched his hat, got out of the fly immediately, and gave me the letter.

I opened it at once and read these lines.  I copy them here, thinking it best to destroy the original for caution’s sake.

“Dear madam,—­Your letter received this morning has caused me very great anxiety.  I will reply to it as briefly and plainly as possible.

“My careful consideration of the statement made by yourself, and my knowledge of Lady Glyde’s position, as defined in the settlement, lead me, I regret to say, to the conclusion that a loan of the trust money to Sir Percival (or, in other words, a loan of some portion of the twenty thousand pounds of Lady Glyde’s fortune) is in contemplation, and that she is made a party to the deed, in order to secure her approval of a flagrant breach of trust, and to have her signature produced against her if she should complain hereafter.  It is impossible, on any other supposition, to account, situated as she is, for her execution to a deed of any kind being wanted at all.