“I don’t disguise from myself, or from you,” I went on, “that the prospect before us is more than doubtful.  The risks we have run already are, it may be, trifles compared with the risks that threaten us in the future, but the venture shall be tried, Marian, for all that.  I am not rash enough to measure myself against such a man as the Count before I am well prepared for him.  I have learnt patience—­I can wait my time.  Let him believe that his message has produced its effect—­let him know nothing of us, and hear nothing of us—­let us give him full time to feel secure—­his own boastful nature, unless I seriously mistake him, will hasten that result.  This is one reason for waiting, but there is another more important still.  My position, Marian, towards you and towards Laura ought to be a stronger one than it is now before I try our last chance.”

She leaned near to me, with a look of surprise.

“How can it be stronger?” she asked.

“I will tell you,” I replied, “when the time comes.  It has not come yet—­it may never come at all.  I may be silent about it to Laura for ever—­I must be silent now, even to you, till I see for myself that I can harmlessly and honourably speak.  Let us leave that subject.  There is another which has more pressing claims on our attention.  You have kept Laura, mercifully kept her, in ignorance of her husband’s death——­”

“Oh, Walter, surely it must be long yet before we tell her of it?”

“No, Marian.  Better that you should reveal it to her now, than that accident, which no one can guard against, should reveal it to her at some future time.  Spare her all the details—­break it to her very tenderly, but tell her that he is dead.”

“You have a reason, Walter, for wishing her to know of her husband’s death besides the reason you have just mentioned?”

“I have.”

“A reason connected with that subject which must not be mentioned between us yet?—­which may never be mentioned to Laura at all?”

She dwelt on the last words meaningly.  When I answered her in the affirmative, I dwelt on them too.

Her face grew pale.  For a while she looked at me with a sad, hesitating interest.  An unaccustomed tenderness trembled in her dark eyes and softened her firm lips, as she glanced aside at the empty chair in which the dear companion of all our joys and sorrows had been sitting.

“I think I understand,” she said.  “I think I owe it to her and to you, Walter, to tell her of her husband’s death.”

She sighed, and held my hand fast for a moment—­then dropped it abruptly, and left the room.  On the next day Laura knew that his death had released her, and that the error and the calamity of her life lay buried in his tomb.

His name was mentioned among us no more.  Thenceforward, we shrank from the slightest approach to the subject of his death, and in the same scrupulous manner, Marian and I avoided all further reference to that other subject, which, by her consent and mine, was not to be mentioned between us yet.  It was not the less present in our minds—­it was rather kept alive in them by the restraint which we had imposed on ourselves.  We both watched Laura more anxiously than ever, sometimes waiting and hoping, sometimes waiting and fearing, till the time came.