“About business that very much concerns you.”

I lingered long enough in passing through the hall-door to hear this question and answer, and to see Sir Percival thrust his hands into his pockets in sullen hesitation.

“If you want to badger me with any more of your infernal scruples,” he said, “I for one won’t hear them.  I want my lunch.”

“Come out here and speak to me,” repeated the Count, still perfectly uninfluenced by the rudest speech that his friend could make to him.

Sir Percival descended the steps.  The Count took him by the arm, and walked him away gently.  The “business,” I was sure, referred to the question of the signature.  They were speaking of Laura and of me beyond a doubt.  I felt heart-sick and faint with anxiety.  It might be of the last importance to both of us to know what they were saying to each other at that moment, and not one word of it could by any possibility reach my ears.

I walked about the house, from room to room, with the lawyer’s letter in my bosom (I was afraid by this time even to trust it under lock and key), till the oppression of my suspense half maddened me.  There were no signs of Laura’s return, and I thought of going out to look for her.  But my strength was so exhausted by the trials and anxieties of the morning that the heat of the day quite overpowered me, and after an attempt to get to the door I was obliged to return to the drawing-room and lie down on the nearest sofa to recover.

I was just composing myself when the door opened softly and the Count looked in.

“A thousand pardons, Miss Halcombe,” he said; “I only venture to disturb you because I am the bearer of good news.  Percival—­who is capricious in everything, as you know—­has seen fit to alter his mind at the last moment, and the business of the signature is put off for the present.  A great relief to all of us, Miss Halcombe, as I see with pleasure in your face.  Pray present my best respects and felicitations, when you mention this pleasant change of circumstances to Lady Glyde.”

He left me before I had recovered my astonishment.  There could be no doubt that this extraordinary alteration of purpose in the matter of the signature was due to his influence, and that his discovery of my application to London yesterday, and of my having received an answer to it to-day, had offered him the means of interfering with certain success.

I felt these impressions, but my mind seemed to share the exhaustion of my body, and I was in no condition to dwell on them with any useful reference to the doubtful present or the threatening future.  I tried a second time to run out and find Laura, but my head was giddy and my knees trembled under me.  There was no choice but to give it up again and return to the sofa, sorely against my will.