had communicated by writing; and, through
this medium, Count Fosco had made Mr. Fairlie
acquainted with the details of his niece's last
illness and death. The letter presenting this
information added no new facts to the facts
already known; but one very remarkable
paragraph was contained in the postscript. It
referred to the woman Anne Catherick.

The substance of the paragraph in question
was as follows:

It flrst informed Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick
(of whom he might hear full particulars
from Miss Halcombe when she reached Limmeridge)
had been traced and recovered in the
neighbourhood of Blackwater Park, and had
been, for the second time, placed under the
charge of the medical man from whose custody
she had once escaped.

This was the first part of the postscript. The
second part warned Mr. Fairlie that Anne
Catherick's mental malady had been aggravated by
her long freedom from control; and that the
insane hatred and distrust of Sir Percival Glyde,
which had been one of her most marked
delusions in former times, still existed, under a
newly-acquired form. The unfortunate woman's
last idea in connexion with Sir Percival, was the
idea of annoying and distressing him, and of
elevating herself, as she supposed, in the
estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming
the character of his deceased wife; the scheme
of this personation having evidently occurred to
her, after a stolen interview which she had
succeeded in obtaining with Lady Glyde, and at
which she had observed the extraordinary
accidental likeness between the deceased lady and
herself. It was to the last degree improbable
that she would succeed a second time in escaping
from the Asylum; but it was just possible
she might find some means of annoying the late
Lady Glyde's relatives with letters; and, in that
case, Mr. Fairlie was warned beforehand how to
receive them.

The postscript, expressed in these terms,
was shown to Miss Halcombe, when she
arrived at Limmeridge. There were also placed
in her possession the clothes Lady Glyde had
worn, and the other effects she had brought with
her to her aunt's house. They had been
carefully collected and sent to Cumberland by
Madame Fosco.

Such was the posture of affairs when Miss
Halcombe reached Limmeridge, in the early
part of September. Shortly afterwards, she
was confined to her room by a relapse; her
weakened physical energies giving way under
the severe mental affliction from which she
was now suffering. On getting stronger
again, in a month's time, her suspicion of the
circumstances described as attending her
sister's death, still remained unshaken. She had
heard nothing, in the interim, of Sir Percival
Glyde; but letters had reached her from Madame
Fosco, making the most affectionate inquiries on
the part of her husband and herself. Instead of
answering these letters, Miss Halcombe caused
the house in St. John's Wood, and the proceedings
of its inmates, to be privately watched.
Nothing doubtful was discovered. The same
result attended the next investigations, which
were secretly instituted on the subject of Mrs.
Rubelle. She had arrived in London, about six
months before, with her husband. They had come from
Lyons ; and they had taken a house in the
neighbourhood of Leicester-square, to be fitted
up as a boarding-house for foreigners, who were
expected to visit England in large numbers to
see the Exhibition of 1851. Nothing was known
against husband or wife, in the neighbourhood.
They were quiet people; and they had paid
their way honestly up to the present time. The
final inquiries related to Sir Percival Glyde. He
was settled in Paris; and living there quietly in
a small circle of English and French friends.

Foiled at all points, but still not able to rest,
Miss Halcombe next determined to visit the
Asylum in which Anne Catherick was for the
second time confined. She had felt a strong
curiosity about the woman in former days; and
she was now doubly interested— first, in
ascertaining whether the report of Anne Catherick's
attempted personation of Lady Glyde was true;
and, secondly (if it proved to be true), in
discovering for herself what the poor creature's real
motives were for attempting the deceit.

Although Count Fosco's letter to Mr. Fairlie
did not mention the address of the Asylum, that
important omission cast no difficulties in Miss
Halcombe's way. When Mr. Hartright had met
Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, she had
informed him of the locality in which the house
was situated; and Miss Halcombe had noted
down the direction in her diary, with all the
other particulars of the interview, exactly as she
heard them from Mr. Hartright's own lips.
Accordingly, she looked back at the entry, and
extracted the address; furnished herself with the
Count's letter to Mr. Fairlie, as a species of
credential which might be useful to her; and started
by herself for the Asylum, on the eleventh of
October.

She passed the night of the eleventh in London.
It had been her intention to sleep at the
house inhabited by Lady Glyde's old governess;
but Mrs. Vesey's agitation at the sight of her
lost pupil's nearest and dearest friend was so
distressing, that Miss Halcombe considerately
refrained from remaining in her presence, and
removed to a respectable boarding-house in the
neighbourhood, recommended by Mrs. Vesey's
married sister. The next day, she proceeded to
the Asylum, which was situated, not far from
London, on the northern side of the metropolis.

She was immediately admitted to see the
proprietor. At first, he appeared to be decidedly
unwilling to let her communicate with his patient.
But, on her showing him the postscript to Count
Fosco's letter—on her reminding him that she
was the "Miss Halcombe" there referred to;
that she was a near relative of the deceased Lady
Glyde; and that she was therefore naturally
interested, for family reasons, in observing for
herself the extent of Anne Catherick's delusion, in
relation to her late sister—the tone and manner