It was then twenty minutes to nine.  After going to my room to get my journal, I returned, and sat with Laura, sometimes writing, sometimes stopping to talk with her.  Nobody came near us, and nothing happened.  We remained together till ten o’clock.  I then rose, said my last cheering words, and wished her good-night.  She locked her door again after we had arranged that I should come in and see her the first thing in the morning.

I had a few sentences more to add to my diary before going to bed myself, and as I went down again to the drawing-room after leaving Laura for the last time that weary day, I resolved merely to show myself there, to make my excuses, and then to retire an hour earlier than usual for the night.

Sir Percival, and the Count and his wife, were sitting together.  Sir Percival was yawning in an easy-chair, the Count was reading, Madame Fosco was fanning herself.  Strange to say, her face was flushed now.  She, who never suffered from the heat, was most undoubtedly suffering from it to-night.

“I am afraid, Countess, you are not quite so well as usual?” I said.

“The very remark I was about to make to you,” she replied.  “You are looking pale, my dear.”

My dear!  It was the first time she had ever addressed me with that familiarity!  There was an insolent smile too on her face when she said the words.

“I am suffering from one of my bad headaches,” I answered coldly.

“Ah, indeed?  Want of exercise, I suppose?  A walk before dinner would have been just the thing for you.”  She referred to the “walk” with a strange emphasis.  Had she seen me go out?  No matter if she had.  The letters were safe now in Fanny’s hands.

“Come and have a smoke, Fosco,” said Sir Percival, rising, with another uneasy look at his friend.

“With pleasure, Percival, when the ladies have gone to bed,” replied the Count.

“Excuse me, Countess, if I set you the example of retiring,” I said.  “The only remedy for such a headache as mine is going to bed.”

I took my leave.  There was the same insolent smile on the woman’s face when I shook hands with her.  Sir Percival paid no attention to me.  He was looking impatiently at Madame Fosco, who showed no signs of leaving the room with me.  The Count smiled to himself behind his book.  There was yet another delay to that quiet talk with Sir Percival—­and the Countess was the impediment this time.

IX

June 19th.—­Once safely shut into my own room, I opened these pages, and prepared to go on with that part of the day’s record which was still left to write.

For ten minutes or more I sat idle, with the pen in my hand, thinking over the events of the last twelve hours.  When I at last addressed myself to my task, I found a difficulty in proceeding with it which I had never experienced before.  In spite of my efforts to fix my thoughts on the matter in hand, they wandered away with the strangest persistency in the one direction of Sir Percival and the Count, and all the interest which I tried to concentrate on my journal centred instead in that private interview between them which had been put off all through the day, and which was now to take place in the silence and solitude of the night.