We had been out on the terrace together, just in front of the glass doors, hardly so long as five minutes, I should think; and Miss Fairlie was, by my advice, just tying her white handkerchief over her head as a precaution against the night air—­when I heard Miss Halcombe’s voice—­low, eager, and altered from its natural lively tone—­pronounce my name.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “will you come here for a minute?  I want to speak to you.”

I entered the room again immediately.  The piano stood about half-way down along the inner wall.  On the side of the instrument farthest from the terrace Miss Halcombe was sitting with the letters scattered on her lap, and with one in her hand selected from them, and held close to the candle.  On the side nearest to the terrace there stood a low ottoman, on which I took my place.  In this position I was not far from the glass doors, and I could see Miss Fairlie plainly, as she passed and repassed the opening on to the terrace, walking slowly from end to end of it in the full radiance of the moon.

“I want you to listen while I read the concluding passages in this letter,” said Miss Halcombe.  “Tell me if you think they throw any light upon your strange adventure on the road to London.  The letter is addressed by my mother to her second husband, Mr. Fairlie, and the date refers to a period of between eleven and twelve years since.  At that time Mr. and Mrs. Fairlie, and my half-sister Laura, had been living for years in this house; and I was away from them completing my education at a school in Paris.”

She looked and spoke earnestly, and, as I thought, a little uneasily as well.  At the moment when she raised the letter to the candle before beginning to read it, Miss Fairlie passed us on the terrace, looked in for a moment, and seeing that we were engaged, slowly walked on.

Miss Halcombe began to read as follows:—­

“’You will be tired, my dear Philip, of hearing perpetually about my schools and my scholars.  Lay the blame, pray, on the dull uniformity of life at Limmeridge, and not on me.  Besides, this time I have something really interesting to tell you about a new scholar.

“’You know old Mrs. Kempe at the village shop.  Well, after years of ailing, the doctor has at last given her up, and she is dying slowly day by day.  Her only living relation, a sister, arrived last week to take care of her.  This sister comes all the way from Hampshire—­her name is Mrs. Catherick.  Four days ago Mrs. Catherick came here to see me, and brought her only child with her, a sweet little girl about a year older than our darling Laura——­’”

As the last sentence fell from the reader’s lips, Miss Fairlie passed us on the terrace once more.  She was softly singing to herself one of the melodies which she had been playing earlier in the evening.  Miss Halcombe waited till she had passed out of sight again, and then went on with the letter—­