confide to a stranger. I could only abstain most
carefully from raising any false hopes, and then
explain that the object of my visit was to discover
the persons who were really responsible
for Anne's disappearance. I even added, so as
to exonerate myself from any after-reproach of
my own conscience, that I entertained not the
least hope of being able to trace her; that
I believed we should never see her alive
again; and that my main interest in the affair
was to bring to punishment two men whom
I suspected to be concerned in luring her away,
and at whose hands I and some dear friends
of mine had suffered a grievous wrong. With
this explanation, I left it to Mrs. Clements to
say whether our interest in the matter (whatever
difference there might be in the motives which
actuated us) was not the same; and whether she
felt any reluctance to forward my object by
giving me such information on the subject of
my inquiries as she happened to possess.

The poor woman was, at first, too much
confused and agitated to understand thoroughly
what I said to her. She could only reply that I
was welcome to anything she could tell me in
return for the kindness I had shown to Anne.
But as she was not very quick and ready, at the
best of times, in talking to strangers, she would
beg me to put her in the right way, and to say
where I wished her to begin. Knowing by
experience that the plainest narrative attainable
from persons who are not accustomed to arrange
their ideas, is the narrative which goes far
enough back at the beginning to avoid all
impediments of retrospection in its course, I asked
Mrs. Clements to tell me, first, what had happened
after she had left Limmeridge; and so, by watchful
questioning, carried her on from point to
point till we reached the period of Anne's
disappearance.

The substance of the information which I thus
obtained, was as follows:

On leaving the farm at Todd's Corner, Mrs.
Clements and Anne had travelled, that day, as
far as Derby; and had remained there a week,
on Anne's account. They had then gone on to
London, and had lived in the lodging occupied
by Mrs. Clements, at that time, for a month or
more, when circumstances connected with the
house and the landlord had obliged them to
change their quarters. Anne's terror of being
discovered in London or its neighbourhood,
whenever they ventured to walk out, had
gradually communicated itself to Mrs. Clements;
and she had determined on removing to one of
the most out-of-the-way places in England, to the
town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire, where her
deceased husband had passed all his early life. His
relatives were respectable people settled in the
town; they had always treated Mrs. Clements
with great kindness; and she thought it impossible
to do better than go there, and take the
advice of her husband's friends. Anne would
not hear of returning to her mother at
Welmingham, because she had been removed to the
Asylum from that place, and because Sir Percival
would be certain to go back there and find
her again. There was serious weight in this
objection, and Mrs. Clements felt that it was not
to be easily removed.

At Grimsby the first serious symptoms of illness
had shown themselves in Anne. They
appeared soon after the news of Lady Glyde's
marriage had been made public in the newspapers,
and had reached her through that medium.

The medical man who was sent for to attend
the sick woman, discovered at once that she
was suffering from a serious affection of the
heart. The illness lasted long, left her very
weak, and returned, at intervals, though with
mitigated severity, again and again. They
remained at Grimsby, in consequence, all through
the first half of the new year; and there they
might probably have stayed much longer, but
for the sudden resolution which Anne took, at
this time, to venture back to Hampshire, for the
purpose of obtaining a private interview with
Lady Glyde.

Mrs. Clements did all in her power to oppose
the execution of this hazardous and unaccountable
project. No explanation of her motives was
offered by Anne, except that she believed the
day of her death was not far off, and that she
had something on her mind which must be
communicated to Lady Glyde, at any risk, in secret.
Her resolution to accomplish this purpose was so
firmly settled, that she declared her intention of
going to Hampshire by herself, if Mrs. Clements
felt any unwillingness to go with her. The
doctor, on being consulted, was of opinion that
serious opposition to her wishes would, in all
probability, produce another and perhaps a fatal
fit of illness; and Mrs. Clements, under this
advice, yielded to necessity, and once more, with
sad forebodings of trouble and danger to come,
allowed Anne Catherick to have her own way.

On the journey from London to Hampshire,
Mrs. Clements discovered that one of their
fellow-passengers was well acquainted with the
neighbourhood of Blackwater, and could give
her all the information she needed on the subject
of localities. In this way, she found out that the
only place they could go to which was not dangerously
near to Sir Percival's residence, was a large
village, called Sandon. The distance, here, from
Blackwater Park was between three and four
miles—- and that distance, and back again, Anne
had walked, on each occasion when she had
appeared in the neighbourhood of the lake.

For the few days, during which they were at
Sandon without being discovered, they had
lived a little away from the village, in the cottage
of a decent widow-woman, who had a bedroom
to let, and whose discreet silence Mrs. Clements
had done her best to secure, for the first week
at least. She had also tried hard to induce
Anne to be content with writing to Lady Glyde,
in the first instance. But the failure of the
warning contained in the anonymous letter sent
to Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to speak
this time, and obstinate in the determination to
go on her errand alone.

Mrs. Clements, nevertheless, followed her
privately on each occasion when she went to