“For God’s sake, leave me!” she said faintly.

The confession of her heart’s secret burst from her in those pleading words.  I had no right to hear them, no right to answer them—­they were the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from the room.  It was all over.  I dropped her hand, I said no more.  The blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and I dashed them away to look at her for the last time.  One look as she sank into a chair, as her arms fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily.  One farewell look, and the door had closed upon her—­the great gulf of separation had opened between us—­the image of Laura Fairlie was a memory of the past already.

The End of Hartright’s Narrative.

THE STORY CONTINUED BY VINCENT GILMORE (of Chancery Lane, Solicitor)

I

I write these lines at the request of my friend, Mr. Walter Hartright.  They are intended to convey a description of certain events which seriously affected Miss Fairlie’s interests, and which took place after the period of Mr. Hartright’s departure from Limmeridge House.

There is no need for me to say whether my own opinion does or does not sanction the disclosure of the remarkable family story, of which my narrative forms an important component part.  Mr. Hartright has taken that responsibility on himself, and circumstances yet to be related will show that he has amply earned the right to do so, if he chooses to exercise it.  The plan he has adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most truthful and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were directly concerned in those events at the time of their occurrence.  My appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary consequence of this arrangement.  I was present during the sojourn of Sir Percival Glyde in Cumberland, and was personally concerned in one important result of his short residence under Mr. Fairlie’s roof.  It is my duty, therefore, to add these new links to the chain of events, and to take up the chain itself at the point where, for the present only Mr. Hartright has dropped it.

I arrived at Limmeridge House on Friday the second of November.

My object was to remain at Mr. Fairlie’s until the arrival of Sir Percival Glyde.  If that event led to the appointment of any given day for Sir Percival’s union with Miss Fairlie, I was to take the necessary instructions back with me to London, and to occupy myself in drawing the lady’s marriage-settlement.

On the Friday I was not favoured by Mr. Fairlie with an interview.  He had been, or had fancied himself to be, an invalid for years past, and he was not well enough to receive me.  Miss Halcombe was the first member of the family whom I saw.  She met me at the house door, and introduced me to Mr. Hartright, who had been staying at Limmeridge for some time past.