“Don’t speak of him,” she cried.  “The Count is the vilest creature breathing!  The Count is a miserable Spy——!”

Before we could either of us say another word we were alarmed by a soft knocking at the door of the bedroom.

I had not yet sat down, and I went first to see who it was.  When I opened the door Madame Fosco confronted me with my handkerchief in her hand.

“You dropped this downstairs, Miss Halcombe,” she said, “and I thought I could bring it to you, as I was passing by to my own room.”

Her face, naturally pale, had turned to such a ghastly whiteness that I started at the sight of it.  Her hands, so sure and steady at all other times, trembled violently, and her eyes looked wolfishly past me through the open door, and fixed on Laura.

She had been listening before she knocked!  I saw it in her white face, I saw it in her trembling hands, I saw it in her look at Laura.

After waiting an instant she turned from me in silence, and slowly walked away.

I closed the door again.  “Oh, Laura!  Laura!  We shall both rue the day when you called the Count a Spy!”

“You would have called him so yourself, Marian, if you had known what I know.  Anne Catherick was right.  There was a third person watching us in the plantation yesterday, and that third person—–­”

“Are you sure it was the Count?”

“I am absolutely certain.  He was Sir Percival’s spy—­he was Sir Percival’s informer—­he set Sir Percival watching and waiting, all the morning through, for Anne Catherick and for me.”

“Is Anne found?  Did you see her at the lake?”

“No.  She has saved herself by keeping away from the place.  When I got to the boat-house no one was there.”

“Yes?  Yes?”

“I went in and sat waiting for a few minutes.  But my restlessness made me get up again, to walk about a little.  As I passed out I saw some marks on the sand, close under the front of the boat-house.  I stooped down to examine them, and discovered a word written in large letters on the sand.  The word was—­look.”

“And you scraped away the sand, and dug a hollow place in it?”

“How do you know that, Marian?”

“I saw the hollow place myself when I followed you to the boat-house.  Go on—­go on!”

“Yes, I scraped away the sand on the surface, and in a little while I came to a strip of paper hidden beneath, which had writing on it.  The writing was signed with Anne Catherick’s initials.”

“Where is it?”

“Sir Percival has taken it from me.”

“Can you remember what the writing was?  Do you think you can repeat it to me?”

“In substance I can, Marian.  It was very short.  You would have remembered it, word for word.”

“Try to tell me what the substance was before we go any further.”

She complied.  I write the lines down here exactly as she repeated them to me.  They ran thus—­