Count had discovered it.  If I could have felt certain of your return, I should have risked waiting till you came back.  But I was certain of nothing, and I acted at once on my own impulse.  You had spoken, before leaving us, of moving into a quieter neighbourhood and purer air, for the sake of Laura’s health.  I had only to remind her of that, and to suggest surprising you and saving you trouble by managing the move in your absence, to make her quite as anxious for the change as I was.  She helped me to pack up your things, and she has arranged them all for you in your new working-room here.”

“What made you think of coming to this place?”

“My ignorance of other localities in the neighbourhood of London.  I felt the necessity of getting as far away as possible from our old lodgings, and I knew something of Fulham, because I had once been at school there.  I despatched a messenger with a note, on the chance that the school might still be in existence.  It was in existence—­the daughters of my old mistress were carrying it on for her, and they engaged this place from the instructions I had sent.  It was just post-time when the messenger returned to me with the address of the house.  We moved after dark—­we came here quite unobserved.  Have I done right, Walter?  Have I justified your trust in me?”

I answered her warmly and gratefully, as I really felt.  But the anxious look still remained on her face while I was speaking, and the first question she asked, when I had done, related to Count Fosco.

I saw that she was thinking of him now with a changed mind.  No fresh outbreak of anger against him, no new appeal to me to hasten the day of reckoning escaped her.  Her conviction that the man’s hateful admiration of herself was really sincere, seemed to have increased a hundredfold her distrust of his unfathomable cunning, her inborn dread of the wicked energy and vigilance of all his faculties.  Her voice fell low, her manner was hesitating, her eyes searched into mine with an eager fear when she asked me what I thought of his message, and what I meant to do next after hearing it.

“Not many weeks have passed, Marian,” I answered, “since my interview with Mr. Kyrle.  When he and I parted, the last words I said to him about Laura were these:  ’Her uncle’s house shall open to receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave; the lie that records her death shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family, and the two men who have wronged her shall answer for their crime to me, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them.’  One of those men is beyond mortal reach.  The other remains, and my resolution remains.”

Her eyes lit up—­her colour rose.  She said nothing, but I saw all her sympathies gathering to mine in her face.