I occupied the interval day at the farm in writing a plain narrative of the conspiracy, and in adding to it a statement of the practical contradiction which facts offered to the assertion of Laura’s death.  This I submitted to Mr. Kyrle before I read it the next day to the assembled tenants.  We also arranged the form in which the evidence should be presented at the close of the reading.  After these matters were settled, Mr. Kyrle endeavoured to turn the conversation next to Laura’s affairs.  Knowing, and desiring to know nothing of those affairs, and doubting whether he would approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in relation to my wife’s life-interest in the legacy left to Madame Fosco, I begged Mr. Kyrle to excuse me if I abstained from discussing the subject.  It was connected, as I could truly tell him, with those sorrows and troubles of the past which we never referred to among ourselves, and which we instinctively shrank from discussing with others.

My last labour, as the evening approached, was to obtain “The Narrative of the Tombstone,” by taking a copy of the false inscription on the grave before it was erased.

The day came—­the day when Laura once more entered the familiar breakfast-room at Limmeridge House.  All the persons assembled rose from their seats as Marian and I led her in.  A perceptible shock of surprise, an audible murmur of interest ran through them, at the sight of her face.  Mr. Fairlie was present (by my express stipulation), with Mr. Kyrle by his side.  His valet stood behind him with a smelling-bottle ready in one hand, and a white handkerchief, saturated with eau-de-Cologne, in the other.

I opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to Mr. Fairlie to say whether I appeared there with his authority and under his express sanction.  He extended an arm, on either side, to Mr. Kyrle and to his valet—­was by them assisted to stand on his legs, and then expressed himself in these terms:  “Allow me to present Mr. Hartright.  I am as great an invalid as ever, and he is so very obliging as to speak for me.  The subject is dreadfully embarrassing.  Please hear him, and don’t make a noise!” With those words he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took refuge in his scented pocket-handkerchief.

The disclosure of the conspiracy followed, after I had offered my preliminary explanation, first of all, in the fewest and the plainest words.  I was there present (I informed my hearers) to declare, first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the daughter of the late Mr. Philip Fairlie; secondly, to prove by positive facts, that the funeral which they had attended in Limmeridge churchyard was the funeral of another woman; thirdly, to give them a plain account of how it had all happened.  Without further preface, I at once read the narrative of the conspiracy, describing it in clear outline, and dwelling only upon the pecuniary motive for it, in order to avoid complicating my statement