He was deaf to everything I could say.  He took me straight upstairs into my own room.  Fanny was sitting there, doing some work for me, and he instantly ordered her out.  ‘I’ll take good care you’re not mixed up in the conspiracy,’ he said.  ’You shall leave this house to-day.  If your mistress wants a maid, she shall have one of my choosing.’  He pushed me into the room, and locked the door on me.  He set that senseless woman to watch me outside, Marian!  He looked and spoke like a madman.  You may hardly understand it—­he did indeed.”

“I do understand it, Laura.  He is mad—­mad with the terrors of a guilty conscience.  Every word you have said makes me positively certain that when Anne Catherick left you yesterday you were on the eve of discovering a secret which might have been your vile husband’s ruin, and he thinks you have discovered it.  Nothing you can say or do will quiet that guilty distrust, and convince his false nature of your truth.  I don’t say this, my love, to alarm you.  I say it to open your eyes to your position, and to convince you of the urgent necessity of letting me act, as I best can, for your protection while the chance is our own.  Count Fosco’s interference has secured me access to you to-day, but he may withdraw that interference to-morrow.  Sir Percival has already dismissed Fanny because she is a quick-witted girl, and devotedly attached to you, and has chosen a woman to take her place who cares nothing for your interests, and whose dull intelligence lowers her to the level of the watch-dog in the yard.  It is impossible to say what violent measures he may take next, unless we make the most of our opportunities while we have them.”

“What can we do, Marian?  Oh, if we could only leave this house, never to see it again!”

“Listen to me, my love, and try to think that you are not quite helpless so long as I am here with you.”

“I will think so—­I do think so.  Don’t altogether forget poor Fanny in thinking of me.  She wants help and comfort too.”

“I will not forget her.  I saw her before I came up here, and I have arranged to communicate with her to-night.  Letters are not safe in the post-bag at Blackwater Park, and I shall have two to write to-day, in your interests, which must pass through no hands but Fanny’s.”

“What letters?”

“I mean to write first, Laura, to Mr. Gilmore’s partner, who has offered to help us in any fresh emergency.  Little as I know of the law, I am certain that it can protect a woman from such treatment as that ruffian has inflicted on you to-day.  I will go into no details about Anne Catherick, because I have no certain information to give.  But the lawyer shall know of those bruises on your arm, and of the violence offered to you in this room—­he shall, before I rest to-night!”

“But think of the exposure, Marian!”

“I am calculating on the exposure.  Sir Percival has more to dread from it than you have.  The prospect of an exposure may bring him to terms when nothing else will.”