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PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY
V LIBRARY J














THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
WILKIE COLLINS,
AUTHOR OF "THE DEAD SECRET," "AFTER DARK," ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.'
SIXTH EDITION.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, SON, & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL.
1860.
[The Right of Translation is Reserved.)


LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, PTAMFORD STREET.
'N..


TO
BEY AN WALLER PROCTER;
FROM ONE OF HB YOUNGER BRETHREN IN LITERATURE,
WHO SINCERELY VALUES HIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND WHO GRATEFULLY REMEMBERS
MANY HAPPY HOURS SPENT IN HIS HOUSE.
757177





PREFACE.
An experiment is attempted in this novel, which has
not (so far as I know) been hitherto tried in fiction.
The story of the book is told throughout by the
characters of the book. They are all placed in
different positions along the chain of events; and
they all take the chain up in turn, and carry it on
to the end.
If the execution of this idea had led to nothing
more than the attainment of mere novelty of form,
I should not have claimed a moment's attention for
it in this place. But the substance of the book, as
well as the form, has profited by it. It has forced
me to keep the story constantly moving forward;
.and it has afforded my characters a new opportunity
of expressing themselves, through the medium of
the written contributions which they are supposed to
make to the progress of the narrative.
In writing these prefatory lines, I cannot prevail
on myself to pass over in silence the warm welcome


VI PREFACE.
which my story has met with, in its periodical
form, among English and American readers. In
the first place, that welcome has, I hope, justified
me for having accepted the serious literary responsi-
bility of appearing in the columns of 'All The Year
Round,' immediately after Mr. Charles Dickens had
occupied them with the most perfect work of con-
structive art that has ever proceeded from his pen.
In the second place, by frankly acknowledging the
recognition that I have obtained thus far, I provide
for myself an opportunity of thanking many corre-
spondents (to whom I am personally unknown) for
the hearty encouragement I received from them
while my work was in progress. Now, while the
visionary men and women, among whom I have
been living so long, are all leaving me, I remember
very gratefully that * Marian' and 'Laura' made
such warm friends in many quarters, that I was
peremptorily cautioned at a serious crisis in the
story, to be careful how . I treated them—that
Mr. Fairlie found sympathetic fellow-sufferers, who
remonstrated with me for not making Christian
allowance for the state of his nerves—that Sir
Percival's 'secret' became sufficiently exasperating,
in course of time, to be made the subject of bets (all
of which I hereby declare to be 'off')—and that


PREFACE. Vll
Count Fosco suggested metaphysical considerations
to the learned in such matters (which I don't quite
understand to this day), besides provoking numerous
inquiries as to the living model, from which he had
been really taken. I can only answer these last by
confessing that many models, some living, and some
dead, have 'sat' for him; and by hinting that the
Count would not have been as true to nature as I
have tried to make him, if the range of my search
for materials had not extended, in his case as well as
in others, beyond the narrow human limit which is
represented by one man.
In presenting my book to a new class of readers,
in its complete form, I have only to say that it
has been carefully revised; and that the divisions of
the chapters, and other minor matters of the same
sort, have been altered here and there, with a view to
smoothing and consolidating the story in its course
through these volumes. If the readers who have
waited until it was done, only prove to be as kind an
audience as the readers who followed it through its
weekly progress, 'The Woman in White' will be
the most precious impersonal Woman on the list of
my acquaintance.
Before I conclude, I am desirous of addressing one


V1U PREFACE.
or two questions, of the most harmless and innocent
kind, to the Critics.
In the event of this book being reviewed, I venture
to ask whether it is possible to praise the writer, or
to blame him, without opening the proceedings by
telling his story at second-hand? As that story is
written by me—with the inevitable suppressions
which the periodical system of publication forces on
the novelist—the telling it fills more than a thousand
closely printed pages. No small portion of this space
is occupied by hundreds of little 'connecting links,'
of trifling value in themselves, but of the utmost
importance in maintaining the smoothness, the
reality, and the probability of the entire narrative.
If the critic tells the story with these, can he do it in
his allotted page, or column, as the case may be? If
he tells it without these, is he doing a fellow-labourer
in another form of Art, the justice which writers owe
to one another? And lastly, if he tells it at all, in
any way whatever, is he doing a service to the reader,
by destroying, beforehand, two main elements in the
attraction of all stories—the interest of curiosity, and
the excitement of surprise?
Harley Street, London,
August 3, 1860.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
THE STORY BEGUN
WALTEE HAETEIGHT,
OP CLEMENT'S INN, TEACHER OF DRAWING. VOL. I.





THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
This is the story of what a Woman's patience can
endure, and of what a Man's resolution can achieve.
If the machinery of the Law could be depended on
to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every
process of inquiry with moderate assistance only from
the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events
which fill these pages might have claimed their share
of the public attention in a Court of Justice.
But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the
pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story
is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As
the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader
shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance,
from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall
be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer of
these introductory lines (Walter Hartright, by name)
happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in
his own person. When his experience fails, he will
retire from the position of narrator; and his task will
be continued, from the point at which he has left it off,
b 2


4 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
by other persons who can speak to the circumstances
under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly
and positively as he has spoken before them.
Thus, the story here presented will be told by more
than one pen, as the story of an offence against the
laws is told in Court by more than one witness—with
the same object, in both cases, to present the truth
always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect;
and to trace the course of one complete series of events,
by making the persons who have been most closely con-
nected with them, at each successive stage, relate their
own experience, word for word.
Let Walter Hartright, teacher of drawing, aged
twenty-eight years, be heard first.


b THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
night air in the suburbs. It was one of the two even-
ings in every week which I was accustomed to spend
with my mother and my sister. So I turned my steps
northward, in the direction of Hampstead.
Events which I have yet to relate, make it necessary
to mention in this place that my father had been dead
some years at the period of which I am now writing;
and that my sister Sarah, and I, were the sole sur-
vivors of a family of five children. My father was a
drawing-master before me. His exertions had made
him highly successful in his profession; and his affec-
tionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who
were dependent on his labours, had impelled him, from
the time of his marriage, to devote to the insuring of
his life a much larger portion of his income than most
men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose.
Thanks to his admirable prudence and self-denial, my
mother and sister were left, after his death, as inde-
pendent of the world as they had. been during his life-
time. I succeeded to his connexion, and had every
reason to feel grateful for the prospect that awaited
me at my starting in life.
The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost
ridges of the heath; and the view of London below me
had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy
night, when I stood before the gate of my mother's
cottage. I had hardly rung the bell, before the house-
door was opened violently; my worthy Italian friend,
Professor Pesca, appeared in the servant's place; and


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. I
darted out joyously to receive me, with a shrill foreign
parody on an English cheer.
On his own account, and, I must be allowed to add,
on mine also, the Professor merits the honour of a
formal introduction. Accident has made him the
starting-point of the strange family story which it is
the purpose of these pages to unfold.
I had first become acquainted with my Italian friend
by meeting him at certain great houses, where he
taught his own language and I taught drawing. All
I then knew of the history of his life was, that he
had once held a situation in the University of Padua;
that he had left Italy for political reasons (the nature
of which he uniformly declined to mention to any
one); and that he had been for many years respectably
established in London as a teacher of languages.
Without being actually a dwarf—for he was per-
fectly well-proportioned from head to foot—Pesca was,
I think, the smallest human being I ever saw, out of a
show-room. Remarkable anywhere, by his personal
appearance, he was still further distinguished among
the rank and file of mankind, by the harmless eccen-
tricity of his character. The ruling idea of his life
appeared to be, that he was bound to show his grati-
tude to the country which had afforded him an asylum
and a means of subsistence, by doing his utmost to
turn himself into an Englishman. Not content with
paying the nation in general the compliment of in-
variably carrying an umbrella, and invariably wearing
'


8 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
gaiters and a white hat, the Professor further aspired
to become an Englishman in his habits and amuse-
ments, as well as in his personal appearance. Finding
us distinguished, as a nation, by our love of athletic
exercises, the little man, in the innocence of his heart,
devoted himself impromptu to all our English sports
and pastimes, whenever he had the opportunity of
joining them; firmly persuaded that he could adopt
our national amusements of the field, by an effort of
will, precisely as he had adopted our national gaiters
and our national white hat.
I had seen him risk his limbs blindly at a fox-hunt
and in a cricket-field; and, soon afterwards, I saw
him risk his life, just as blindly, in the sea at Brighton.
We had met there accidentally, and were bathing
together. If we had been engaged in any exercise
peculiar to my own nation, I should, of course, have
looked after Pesca carefully; but, as foreigners are
generally quite as well able to take care of themselves
in the water as Englishmen, it never occurred to me
that the art of swimming might merely add one more
to the list of manly exercises which the Professor
believed that he could learn impromptu. Soon after
we had both struck out from shore, I stopped, finding
my friend did not gain on me, and turned round to
look for him. To my horror and amazement, I saw
nothing between me and the beach but two little white
arms which struggled for an instant above the surface
of the water, and then disappeared from view. When


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 9
I dived for him, the poor little man was lying quietly
coiled up at the bottom, in a hollow of shingle, looking
by many degrees smaller than I had ever seen him
look before. During the few minutes that elapsed
while I was taking him in, the air revived him, and he
ascended the steps of the machine with my assistance.
With the partial recovery of his animation came the
return of his wonderful delusion on the subject of
swimming. As soon as his chattering teeth.would let
him speak, he smiled vacantly, and said he thought it
must have been the Cramp.
When he had thoroughly recovered himself and had
joined me on the beach, his warm Southern nature
broke through all artificial English restraints, in a
moment. He overwhelmed me with the wildest ex-
pressions of affection—exclaimed passionately, in his
exaggerated Italian way, that he would hold his life,
henceforth, at my disposal—and declared that he
should never be happy again, until he had found an
opportunity of proving his gratitude by rendering me
some service which I might remember, on my side, to
the end of my days.
I did my best to stop the torrent of his tears and
protestations, by persisting in treating the whole ad-
venture as a good subject for a joke; and succeeded
at last, as I imagined, in lessening Pesca's over-
whelming sense of obligation to me. Little did I
think then—little did I think afterwards when our
pleasant holiday had drawn to an end—that the oppor-
b 3


10 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
tunity of serving me for which my grateful companion
so ardently longed, was soon to come; that he was
eagerly to seize it on the instant; and that, by so
doing, he was to turn the whole current of my exist-
ence into a new channel, and to alter me to myself
almost past recognition.
Yet, so it was. If I had not dived for Professor
Pesca, when he lay under water on his shingle bed, I
should, in all human probability, never have been con-
nected with the story which these pages will relate—I should never, perhaps, have heard even the name of
the woman, who has lived in all my thoughts, who has
possessed herself of all my energies, who has become
the one guiding influence that now directs the purpose
of my life.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 11
in
Pesca's face and manner, on the evening when we
confronted each other at my mother's gate, were more
than sufficient to inform me that something extraordi-
nary had happened. It was quite useless, however, to
ask him for an immediate explanation. I could only
conjecture, while he was dragging me in by both
hands, that (knowing my habits) he had come to the
cottage to make sure of meeting me that night, and
that he had some news to tell of an unusually agree-
able kind.
We both bounced into the parlour in a highly abrupt
and undignified manner. My mother sat by the open
window, laughing and fanning herself. Pesca was one
of her especial favourites; and his wildest eccentric cities were always pardonable in her eyes. Poor dear soul! from the first moment when she found out that
the little Professor was deeply and gratefully attached
to her son, she opened her heart to him unreservedly,
and took all his puzzling foreign peculiarities for
granted, without so much as attempting to understand
any one of them.


12 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
My sister Sarah, with all the advantages of youth,
was, strangely enough, less pliable. She did full
justice to Pesca's excellent qualities of heart; but she
could not accept him implicitly, as my mother ac-
cepted him, for my sake. Her insular notions of
propriety rose in perpetual revolt against Pesca's
constitutional contempt for appearances; and she was
always more or less undisguisedly astonished at her
mother's familiarity with the eccentric little foreigner.
I have observed, not only in my sister's case, but in
the instances of others, that we of the young generation
are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of
our elders. I constantly see old people flushed and
excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure
which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their
serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such
genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were, in
their time? Has the great advance in education taken
rather too long a stride; and are we, in these modern
days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought
up?
Without attempting to answer those questions
decisively, I may at least record that I never saw
my mother and my sister together in Pesca's society,
without finding my mother much the younger woman
of the two. On this occasion, for example, while the
old lady was laughing heartily over the boyish manner
in which we tumbled into the parlour, Sarah was
perturbedly picking up the broken pieces of a teacup,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 13
which the Professor had knocked off the table in his
precipitate advance to meet me at the door.
"I don't know what would have happened, Walter,"
said my mother, "if you had delayed much longer
Pesca has been half-mad with impatience; and I have
been half-mad with curiosity. The Professor has
brought some wonderful news with him, in which he
says you are concerned; and he has cruelly refused to
give us the smallest hint of it till his friend Walter
appeared."
"Very provoking: it spoils the Set," murmured
Sarah to herself, mournfully absorbed over the ruins
of the broken cup.
While these words were being spoken, Pesca, happily
and fussily unconscious of the irreparable wrong which
the crockery had suffered at his hands, was dragging a
large arm-chair to the opposite end of the room, so as
to command us all three, in the character of a public
speaker addressing an audience. Having turned the
chair with its back towards us, he jumped into it on
his knees, and excitably addressed his small congrega-
tion of three from an impromptu pulpit
.
"Now, my good dears," began Pesca (who always
said "good dears," when he meant "worthy friends "),
"listen to me. The time has come—I recite my good
news—I speak at last."
"Hear, hear!" said my mother, humouring the joke.
"The next thing he will break, mamma," whispered
Sarah, "will be the back of the best arm-chair."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 15
and his general ignorance of 'their sense, into com-
pound words and repetitions of his own, and always
running them into each other, as if they consisted of
one long syllable.
"Among the fine London houses where I teach the
language of my native country," said the Professor,
rushing into his long-deferred explanation without
another word of preface, "there is one, mighty fine, in
the big place called Portland. You all know where
that is? Yes, yes—course-of-course. The fine house,
my good dears, has got inside it a fine family. A
Mamma, fair and fat; three young Misses, fair and
fat; two young Misters, fair and fat; and a Papa,
the fairest and the fattest of all, who is a mighty
merchant, up to his eyes in gold—a fine man once,
but seeing that he has got a naked head and two
chins, fine no longer at the present time. Now
mind! I teach the sublime Dante to the young
Misses, and ah !—my-soul-bless-my-soul!—it is not in
human language to say how the sublime Dante puzzles
the pretty heads of all three! No matter—all in good
time—and the more lessons the better for me. Now
mind! Imagine to yourselves that I am teaching the
young Misses to-day, as usual. We are all four of us
down together in the Hell of Dante. At the Seventh
Circle—but no matter for that: all the Circles are
alike to the three young Misses, fair and fat,—at the
Seventh Circle, nevertheless, my pupils are sticking
fast; and I, to set them going again, recite, explain,


16 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
and blow myself up red-hot with useless enthusiasm,
when—a creak of boots in the passage outside, and in
comes the golden Papa, the mighty merchant with the
naked head and the two chins.—Ha! my good dears,
I am closer than you think for to the business, now.
Have you been patient so far? or have you said to
yourselves, 'Deuce-what-the-deuce! Pesca is long-
winded to-night ?'"
We declared that we were deeply interested. The
Professor went on:
"In his hand, the golden Papa has a letter; and
after he has made his excuse for disturbing us in our
Infernal Region with the common mortal Business of
the house, he addresses himself to the three young
Misses, and begins, as you English begin everything
in this blessed world that you have to say, with a
great O. 'O, my dears,' says the mighty merchant,
'I have got here a letter from my friend, Mr. ,
(the name has slipped out of my mind; but no matter;
we shall come back to that: yes, yes—right-all-
right). So the Papa says, 'I have got a letter from
my friend, the Mister; and he wants a recommend
from me, of a drawing-master, to go down to his
house in the country' My-soul-bless-my-soul! when
I heard the golden Papa say those words, if I had
been big enough to reach up to him, I should have
put my arms round his neck, and pressed him to
my bosom in a long and grateful hug! As it was,
I only bounced upon my chair. My seat was on


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 17
thorns, and my soul was on fire to speak; but I held
my tongue, and let Papa go on. 'Perhaps you know,'
says this good man of money, twiddling his friend's
letter this way and that, in his golden fingers and
thumbs, 'perhaps you know, my dears, of a drawing-
master that I can recommend?' The three young Misses
all look at each other, and then say (with the indispen-
sable great O to begin) « O, dear no, Papa! But here
is Mr. Pesca 'At the mention of myself I can
hold no longer—the thought of you, my good dears,
mounts like blood to my head—I start from my seat,
as if a spike had grown up from the ground through
the bottom of my chair—I address myself to the
mighty merchant, and I say (English phrase), 'Dear
sir, I have the man! The first and foremost drawing-
master of the world! Recommend him by the post
to-night, and send him off, bag and baggage (English
phrase again—ha?), send him off, bag and baggage,
by the train to-morrow!' 'Stop, stop,' says Papa,
'is he a foreigner, or an Englishman?' 'English to
the bone of his back,' I answer. 'Respectable?' says
Papa. 'Sir,' I say '(for this last question of his out-
rages me, and I have done being familiar with him),
Sir! the immortal fire of genius burns in this English-
man's bosom, and, what is more, his father had it
before him!' 'Never mind,' says the golden bar-
barian of a Papa, 'never mind about his genius, Mr.
Pesca. We don't want genius in this country, unless
it is accompanied by respectability—and then we are


18 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
very glad to have it, very glad indeed. Can your
friend produce testimonials—letters that speak to his
character?' I wave my hand negligently. 'Letters?'
I say. 'Ha! my-soul-bless-my-soul! I should think
so, indeed! Volumes of letters and portfolios of
testimonials, if you like?' 'One or two will do,' says
this man of phlegm and money. 'Let him send them
to me, with his name and address. And—stop, stop,
Mr. Pesca—before you go to your friend, you had
better take a note.' 'Bank-note!' I say, indignantly.
'No bank-note, if you please, till my brave English-
man has earned it first.' 'Bank-notel' says Papa, in
a great surprise, 'who talked of bank-note? I mean
a note of the terms—a memorandum of what he is ex-
pected to do. Go on with your lesson, Mr. Pesca, and
I will give you the necessary extract from my friend's
letter.' Down sits the man of merchandise and money
to his pen, ink, and paper; and down I go once again
into the Hell of Dante, with my three young Misses
after me. In ten minutes' time the note is written,
and the boots of Papa are creaking themselves away
in the passage outside. From that moment, on my
faith, and soul, and honour, I know nothing more!
The glorious thought that I have caught my oppor-
tunity at last, and that my grateful service for my
dearest friend in the world is as good as done already,
flies up into my head and makes me drunk. How I
pull my young Misses and myself out of our Infernal
Region again, how my other business is done after-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 19
wards, how my little bit of dinner slides itself down
my throat, I know no more than a man in the moon.
Enough for me, that here I am, with the mighty
merchant's note in my hand, as large as life, as hot as
fire, and as happy as a king! Ha! ha! ha! right-
right-right-all-right!" Here the Professor waved the
memorandum of terms over his head, and ended his
long and voluble narrative with his shrill Italian parody
on an English cheer.
My mother rose the moment he had done, with
flushed cheeks and brightened eyes. She caught the
little man warmly by both hands.
"My dear, good Pesca," she said, "I never doubted
your true affection for Walter—but I am more than
ever persuaded of it now!"
"I am sure we are very much obliged to Professor
Pesca, for Walter's sake," added Sarah. She half
rose, while she spoke, as if to approach the arm-chair,
in her turn ; but, observing that Pesca was rapturously
kissing my mother's hands, looked serious, and re-
sumed her seat. "If the familiar little man treats
my mother in that way, how will he treat me?" Faces
sometimes tell truth; and that was unquestionably
the thought in Sarah's mind, as she sat down again.
Although I myself was gratefully sensible of the
kindness of Pesca's motives, my spirits were hardly
so much elevated as they ought to have been by the
prospect of future employment now placed before me.
When the Professor had quite done with my mother's


20 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
hand, and when I had warmly thanked him for his in-
terference on my behalf, I asked to be allowed to look
at the note of terms which his respectable patron had
drawn up for my inspection.
Pesca handed me the paper, with a triumphant
flourish of the hand.
"Read I" said the little man, majestically. "I
promise you, my friend, the writing of the golden Papa
speaks with a tongue of trumpets for itself."
The note of terms was plain, straightforward, and
comprehensive, at any rate. It informed me,
First, That Frederick Fairlie, Esquire, of Limme-
ridge House, Cumberland, wanted to engage the
services of a thoroughly competent drawing-master, for
a period of four months certain.
Secondly, That the duties which the master was
expected to perform would be of a twofold kind. He
was to superintend the instruction of two young ladies
in the art of painting in water-colours; and he was to
devote his leisure time, afterwards, to the business of
repairing and mounting a valuable collection of draw-
ings, which had been suffered to fall into a condition
of total neglect.
Thirdly, That the terms offered to] the person who
should undertake and properly perform these duties, were four guineas a week; that he was to reside at
Limmeridge House; and that he was to be treated
there on the footing of a gentleman.
Fourthly, and lastly, That no person need think of


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 21
applying for this situation, unless he could furnish the
most unexceptionable references to character and abili-
ties. The references were to be sent to Mr. Fairlie's
friend in London, who was empowered to conclude all
necessary arrangements. These instructions were
followed by the name and address of Pesca's employer
in Portland-place—and there the note, or memo-
randum, ended.
The prospect which this offer of an engagement
held out was certainly an attractive one. The employ-
ment was likely to be both easy and agreeable; it was
proposed to me at the autumn time of the year when I
was least occupied; and the terms, judging by my
personal experience in my profession, were surprisingly
liberal. I knew this; I knew that I ought to consider
myself very fortunate if I succeeded in securing the
offered employment—and yet, no sooner had I read
the memorandum than I felt an inexplicable unwilling-
ness within me to stir in the matter. I had never in
the whole of my previous experience found my duty
and my inclination so painfully and so unaccountably
at variance as I found them now.
"Oh, Walter, your father never had such a chance
as this!" said my mother, when she had read the note
of terms and had handed it back to me.
"Such distinguished people to know," remarked
Sarah, straightening herself in her chair; "and on
such gratifying terms of equality, too!"
"Yes, yes; the terms, in every sense, are tempting


22 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
enough," I replied, impatiently. "But before I send
in my testimonials, I should like a little time to con-
sider"
"Consider!" exclaimed my mother. "Why, Wal-
ter, what is the matter with you?"
"Consider!" echoed my sister. "What a very
extraordinary thing to say, under the circumstances!"
"Consider!" chimed in the Professor. "What is
there to consider about? Answer me this! Have
you not been complaining of your health, and have you
not been longing for what you call a smack of the
country breeze? WellI there in your hand is the
paper that offers you perpetual choking mouthfuls of
country breeze, for four months' time. Is it not so?
Ha? Again—you want money. Well! Is four
golden guineas a week nothing? My-soul-bless-m
soulI only give it to me—and my boots shall creak
like the golden Papa's, with a sense of the overpower-
ing richness of the man who walks in them! Four
guineas a week, and, more than that, the charming
society of two young Misses; and, more than that,
your bed, your breakfast, your dinner, your gorging
English teas and lunches and drinks of foaming beer,
all for nothing—why, Walter, my dear good friend—
deuce-what-the-deuce !—for the first time in my life I
have not eyes enough in my head to look, and wonder
at you!"
Neither my mother's evident astonishment at my
behaviour, nor Pesca's fervid enumeration of the ad-
V


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 23
vantages offered to me by the new employment, had
any effect in shaking my unreasonable disinclination to
go to Limmeridge House. After starting all the petty
objections that I could think of to going to Cumber-
land; and after hearing them answered, one after
another, to my own complete discomfiture, I tried to
set up a last obstacle by asking what was to become
of my pupils in London, while I was teaching Mr.
Fairlie's young ladies to sketch from nature. The
obvious answer to this was, that the greater part of
them would be away on their autumn travels, and
that the few who remained at home might be confided
to the care of one of my brother drawing-masters,
whose pupils I had once taken off his hands under
similar circumstances. My sister reminded me that
this gentleman had expressly placed his services at my
disposal, during the present season, in case I wished
to leave town; my mother seriously appealed to me
not to let an idle caprice stand in the way of my own
interests and my own health; and Pesca piteously en-
treated that I would not wound him to the heart,
by rejecting the first grateful offer of service that he
had been able to make to the friend who had saved
his life.
The evident sincerity and affection which inspired
these remonstrances would have influenced any man
with an atom of good feeling in his composition. Though
I could not conquer my own unaccountable perversity, I
had at least virtue enough to be heartily ashamed of


24 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
it, and to end the discussion pleasantly by giving way,
and promising to do all that was wanted of me.
The rest of the evening passed merrily enough in
humorous anticipations of my coming life with the two
young ladies in Cumberland. Pesca, inspired by our
national grog, which appeared to get into his head, in
the most marvellous manner, five minutes after it had
gone down his throat, asserted his claims to be con-
sidered a complete Englishman by making a series of
speeches in rapid succession; proposing my mother's
health, my sister's health, my health, and the healths,
in mass, of Mr. Fairlie and the two young Misses;
pathetically returning thanks himself, immediately
afterwards, for the whole party. "A secret, Walter,"
said my little friend confidentially, as we walked home
together. "I am flushed by the recollection of my
own eloquence. My soul bursts itself with ambition.
One of these days, I go into your noble Parliament.
It is the dream of my whole life to be Honourable
Pesca, M.P.!"
The next morning I sent my testimonials to the
Professor's employer in Portland-place. Three days
passed; and I concluded, with secret satisfaction, that
my papers had not been found sufficiently explicit.
On the fourth day, however, an answer came. It
announced that Mr. Fairlie accepted my services, and
requested me to start for Cumberland immediately.
All the necessary instructions for my journey were
carefully and clearly added in a postscript.


28 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
wondering, I remember, what the Cumberland young
ladies would look like—when, in one moment, every
drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by
the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my
shoulder from behind me.
I turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening
round the handle of my stick.
There, in the middle of the broad, bright high-
road—there, as if it had that moment sprung out of
the earth or dropped from the heaven—stood the
figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to
foot in white garments; her face bent in grave inquiry
on mine, her hand pointing to the dark cloud over
London, as I faced her.
I was far too seriously startled by the suddenness
with which this extraordinary apparition stood before
me, in the dead of night and in that lonely place,
to ask what she wanted. The strange woman spoke
first.
"Is that the road to London?" she said.
I looked attentively at her, as she put that singular
question to me. It was then nearly one o'clock. All
I could discern distinctly by the moonlight, was a
colourless, youthful face, meagre and sharp to look
at, about the cheeks and chin; large, grave, wistfully-
attentive eyes; nervous, uncertain lips; and light
hair of a pale, brownish-yellow hue. There was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it
was quiet and self-controlled, a little melancholy


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 29
and a little touched by suspicion; not exactly the
manner of a lady, and, at the same time, not the
manner of a woman in the humblest rank of life. The
voice, little as I had yet heard of it, had something
curiously still and mechanical in its tones, and the
utterance was remarkably rapid. She held a small
bag in her hand: and her dress—bonnet, shawl, and
gown all of white—was, so far as I could guess,
certainly not composed of very delicate or very expen-
sive materials. Her figure was slight, and rather
above the average height—her gait and actions free
from the slightest approach to extravagance. This
was all that I could observe of her, in the dim light
and under the perplexingly-strange circumstances of
our meeting. What sort of a woman she was, and
how she came to be out alone in the high-road, an hour
after midnight, I altogether failed to guess. The
one thing of which I felt certain was, that the grossest
of mankind could not have misconstrued her motive
in speaking, even at that suspiciously late hour and
in that suspiciously lonely place.
"Did you hear me?" she said, still quietly and
rapidly, and without the least fretfulness or impatience.
"I asked if that was the way to London."
"Yes," I replied, "that is the way: it leads to
St. John's Wood and the Regent's Park. You must
excuse, my not answering you before. I was rather
startled by your sudden appearance in the road; and
I am, even now, quite unable to account for it."


30 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"You don't suspect me of doing anything wrong,
do you? I have done nothing wrong. I have met
with an accident—I am very unfortunate in being here
alone so late. Why do you suspect me of doing
997 a.
She spoke with unnecessary earnestness and agitation,
and shrank back from me several paces. I did my
best to reassure her.
"Pray don't suppose that I have any idea of
suspecting you," I said, "or any other wish than to
be of assistance to you, if I can. I only wondered
at your appearance in the road, because it seemed to
me to be empty the instant before I saw you."
She turned, and pointed back to a place at the
junction of the road to London and the road to Hamp-
stead, where there was a gap in the hedge.
"I heard you coming," she said, "and hid there
to see what sort of man you were, before I risked
speaking. I doubted and feared about it till you
passed; and then I was obliged to steal after you, and
touch you."
Steal after me, and touch me? Why not call to
me? Strange, to say the least of it.
"May I trust you?" she asked. "You don't
think the worse of me because I have met with an
accident?" She stopped in confusion; shifted her bag
from one hand to the other; and sighed bitterly.
The loneliness and helplessness of the woman
touched me. The natural impulse to assist her and


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 31
to spare her, got the better of the judgment, the
caution, the worldly tact, which an older, wiser, and
colder man might have summoned to help him in this
strange emergency.
"You may trust me for any harmless purpose," I
said. "If it troubles you to explain your strange
situation to me, don't think of returning to the subject
again. I have no right to ask you for any explana-
tions. Tell me how I can help you; and if I can, I will."
"You are very kind, and I am very, very thankful
to have met you." The first touch of womanly tender-
ness that I had heard from her, trembled in her voice
as she said the words; but no tears glistened in those
large, wistfully-attentive eyes of hers, which were
still fixed on me. "I have only been in London once
before," she went on, more and more rapidly; "and
I know nothing about that side of it, yonder. Can I
get a fly, or a carriage of any kind? Is it too late?
I don't know. If you could show me where to get
a fly—and if you will only promise not to interfere
with me, and to let me leave you, when and how
I please—I have a friend in London who will be
glad to receive me—I want nothing else—will you
promise?"
She looked anxiously up and down the road; shifted
her bag again from one hand to the other; repeated
the words, "Will you promise?" and looked hard
in my face, with a pleading fear and confusion that
it troubled me to see. . . . ,


32 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
What could I do? Here was a stranger utterly
and helplessly at my mercy—and that stranger a
forlorn woman. No house was near; no one was
passing whom I could consult; and no earthly right
existed on my part to give me a power of control over
her, even if I had known how to exercise it. I trace
these lines, self-distrustfully, with the shadows of after-
events darkening the very paper I write on; and still
I say, what could I do?
What I did do, was to try and gain time by question-
ing her.
"Are you sure that your friend in London will
receive you at such a late hour as this?" I said.
"Quite sure. Only say you will let me leave you
when and how I please—only say you won't interfere
with me. Will you promise?"
As she repeated the words for the third time, she
came close to me, and laid her hand, with a sudden
gentle stealthiness, on my bosom—a thin hand; a cold
hand (when I removed it with mine) even on that
sultry night. Remember that I was young; remem-
ber that the hand which touched me was a woman's.
"Will you promise?"
"Yes."
One word! The little familiar word that is on
everybody's lips, every hour in the day. Oh me! and
I tremble, now, when I write it.
We set our faces towards London, and walked on
together in the first still hour of the new day—I, and


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 33
this woman, whose name, whose character, whose
story, whose objects in life, whose very presence by
my side, at that moment, were fathomless mysteries to
me. It was like a dream. Was I Walter Hartright?
Was this the well-known, uneventful road, where
holiday people strolled on Sundays? Had I really
left, little more than an hour since, the quiet, decent,
conventionally-domestic atmosphere of my mother's
cottage? I was too bewildered—too conscious also
of a vague sense of something like self-reproach—to
speak to my strange companion for some minutes. It
was her voice again that first broke the silence between
us.
"I want to ask you something," she said, suddenly.
"Do you know many people in London?"
"Yes, a great many."
"Many men of rank and title|j" There was an
unmistakable tone of suspicion in the strange question.
I hesitated about answering it.
"Some," I said, after a moment's silence.
"Many "—she came to a full stop, and looked me
searchingly in the face—" many men of the rank of
Baronet?"
Too much astonished to reply, I questioned her in
my turn.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because I hope, for my own sake, there is one
Baronet that youdon't know."
"Will you tell me his name?"
o 3


34 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"I can't—I daren't—I forget myself, when I men-
tion it." She spoke loudly and almost fiercely, raised
her clenched hand in the air, and shook it passionately;
then, on a sudden, controlled herself again, and added,
in tones lowered to a whisper: "Tell me which of
them you know."
I could hardly refuse to humour her in such a trifle,
and I mentioned three names. Two, the names of
fathers of families whose daughters I taught; one,
the name of a bachelor who had once taken me a
cruise in his yacht, to make sketches for him.
"Ah! you don't know him," she said, with a sigh of
relief. "Are you a man of rank and title yourself?"
"Far from it. I am only a drawing-master."
As the reply passed my lips—a little bitterly,
perhaps—she took my arm with the abruptness which
characterised all her actions.
"Not a man of rank and title," she repeated to
herself. "Thank God! I may trust him."
I had hitherto contrived to master my curiosity
out of consideration for my companion; but it got the
better of me, now.
"I am afraid you have serious reason to complain
of some man of rank and title?" I said. "I am
afraid the baronet, whose name you are unwilling
to mention to me, has done you some grievous wrong?
Is he the cause of your being out here at this strange
time of night?"
"Don't ask me; don't make me talk of it," she


36 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Perhaps you were born," I said, "in the beautiful
Lake country."
"No," she answered. "I was born in Hampshire;
but I once went to school for a little while in Cumber-
land. Lakes? I don't remember any lakes. It's
Limmeridge village, and Limmeridge House, I should
like to see again."
It was my turn, now, to stop suddenly. In the
excited state of my curiosity, at that moment, the
chance reference to Mr. Fairlie's place of residence,
on the lips of my strange companion, staggered.me
with astonishment.
"Did you hear anybody calling after us?" she
asked, looking up and down the road affrightedly, the
instant I stopped.
"No, no. I was only struck by the name of
Limmeridge House—I heard it mentioned by some
Cumberland people a few days since."
"Ah! not my people. Mrs. Fairlie is dead; and
her husband is dead; and their little girl may be
married and gone away by this time. I can't say who
lives at Limmeridge now. If any more are left there
of that name, I only know I love them for Mrs. Fairlie's
sake."
She seemed about to say more; but while she was
speaking, we came within view of the turnpike, at the
top of the Avenue-road. Her hand tightened round
my arm, and she looked anxiously at the gate before
us.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 37
"Is the turnpike man looking out?" she asked.
He was not looking out; no one else was near the
place when we passed through the gate. The sight of
the gas-lamps and houses seemed to agitate her, and
to make her impatient.
"This is London," she said. "Do you see any
carriage I can get? I am tired and frightened. I
want to shut myself in, and be driven away."
I explained to her that we must walk a little further
to get to a cab-stand, unless we were fortunate enough
to meet with an empty vehicle; and then tried to re-
sume the subject of Cumberland. It was useless.
That idea of shutting herself in, and being driven
away, had now got full possession of her mind. She
could think and talk of nothing else.
We had hardly proceeded a third of the way down
the Avenue-road, when I saw a cab draw up at a house
a few doors below us, on the opposite side of the way.
A gentleman got out and let himself in at the garden
door. I hailed the cab, as the driver mounted the box
again. When we crossed the road, my companion's
impatience increased to such an extent that she almost
forced me to run.
"It's so late," she said. "I am only in a hurry
because it's so late."
"I can't take you, sir, if you're not going towards
Tottenham-court-road," said the driver, civilly, when I
opened the cab door. "My horse is dead beat, and I
can't get him no further than the stable."
1


38 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Yes, yes. That will do for me. I'm going that
way—I'm going that way." She spoke with breath-
less eagerness, and pressed by me into the cab.
I had assured myself that the man was sober as well
as civil, before I let her enter the vehicle. And now,
when she was seated inside, I entreated her to let me
see her set down safely at her destination.
"No, no, no," she said, vehemently. "I'm quite
safe and quite happy now. If you are a gentleman,
remember your promise. Let him drive on, till I stop
him. Thank you—oh! thank you, thank you!"
My hand was on the cab door. She caught it in
hers, kissed it, and pushed it away. The cab drove off
at the same moment—I started into the road, with some
vague idea of stopping it again, I hardly knew why—
hesitated from dread of frightening and distressing her
—called, at last, but not loudly enough to attract the
driver's attention. The sound of the wheels grew
fainter in the distance—the cab melted into the black
shadows on the road—the woman in white was gone.
Ten minutes, or more, had passed. I was still on
the same side of the way; now mechanically walking
forward a few paces; now stopping again absently.
At one moment, I found myself doubting the reality of
my own adventure; at another, I was perplexed and
distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong,
which yet left me confusedly ignorant of how I could
have done right. I hardly knew where I was going,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 39
or what I meant to do next; I was conscious of nothing
but the confusion of my own thoughts, when I was
abruptly recalled to myself—awakened I might almost
say—by the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close
behind me.
I was on the dark side of the road, in the thick
shadow of some garden trees, when I stopped to look
round. On the opposite, and lighter side of the way,
a short distance below me, a policeman was strolling
along in the direction of the Regent's Park.
The carriage passed me—an open chaise driven by
two men.
"Stop!" cried one. "There's a policeman. Let's
ask him."
The horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards be-
yond the dark place where I stood.
"Policeman!" cried the first speaker. "Have you
seen a woman pass this way?"
"What sort of woman, sir?"
"A woman in a lavender-coloured gown—"
"No, no," interposed the second man. "The
clothes we gave her were found on her bed. She must
have gone away in the clothes she wore when she came
to us. In white, policeman. A woman in white."
"I haven't seen her, sir."
"If you, or any of your men meet with the woman,
stop her, and send her in careful keeping to that ad-
dress. I'll pay all expenses, and a fair reward into the
bargain."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 41
"She has escaped from my Asylum."
I cannot say with truth that the terrible inference
which those words suggested flashed upon me like a
new revelation. Some of the strange questions put to
me by the woman in white, after my ill-considered
promise to leave her free to act as she pleased, had
suggested the conclusion either that she was naturally
flighty and unsettled, or that some recent shock of
terror had disturbed the balance of her faculties. But
the idea of absolute insanity which we all associate
with the very name of an Asylum, had, I can honestly
declare, never occurred to me, in connexion with her.
I had seen nothing, in her language or her actions, to
justify it at the time; and, even with the new light
thrown on her by the words which the stranger had
addressed to the policeman, I could see nothing to
justify it now.
What had I done? Assisted the victim of the
most horrible of all false imprisonments to escape;
or cast loose on the wide world of London an unfor-
tunate creature, whose actions it was my duty, and


42 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
every man's duty, mercifully to control? I turned
sick at heart when the question occurred to me, and
when I felt self-reproachfully that it was asked too late.
In the disturbed state of my mind, it was useless to
think of going to bed, when I at last got back to my
chambers in Clement's Inn. Before many hours
elapsed it would be necessary to start on my journey
to Cumberland. I sat down and tried, first to sketch,
then to read—but the woman in white got between
me and my pencil, between me and my book. Had
the forlorn creature come to any harm? That was
my first thought, though I shrank selfishly from con-
fronting it. Other thoughts followed, on which it was
less harrowing to dwell. Where had she stopped the
cab? What had become of her now? Had she been
traced and captured by the men in the chaise? Or
was she still capable of controlling her own actions;
and were we two following our widely-parted roads
towards one point in the mysterious future, at which
we were to meet once more?
It was a relief when the hour came to lock my door,
to bid farewell to London pursuits, London pupils,
and London friends, and to be in movement again
towards new interests and a new life. Even the bustle
and confusion at the railway terminus, so wearisome
and bewildering at other times, roused me and did me
good.
My travelling instructions directed me to go to


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 43
Carlisle, and then to diverge by a branch railway
which ran in the direction of the coast. As a mis-
fortune to begin with, our engine broke down between
Lancaster and Carlisle. The delay occasioned by this
accident caused me to be too late for the branch train,
by which I was to have gone on immediately. I had
to wait some hours; and when a later train finally
deposited me at the nearest station to Limmeridge
House, it was past ten, and the night was so dark that
I could hardly see my way to the pony-chaise which
Mr. Fairlie had ordered to be in waiting for me.
The driver was evidently discomposed by the late-
ness of my arrival. He was in that state of highly-
respectful sulkiness which is peculiar to English ser-
vants. We drove away slowly through the darkness
in perfect silence. The roads were bad, and the dense
obscurity of the night increased the difficulty of getting
over the ground quickly. It was, by my watch, nearly
an hour and a half from the time of our leaving the
station before I heard the sound of the sea in the dis-
tance, and the crunch of our wheels on a smooth gravel
drive. We had passed one gate before entering the
drive, and we passed another before we drew up at the
house. I was received by a solemn man-servant out
of livery, was informed that the family had retired for
the night, and was then led into a large and lofty room
where my supper was awaiting me, in a forlorn manner,
at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany wilderness
of dining-table.


44 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
I was too tired and out of spirits to eat or drink
much, especially with the solemn servant waiting on
me as elaborately as if a small dinner-party had arrived
at the house instead of a solitary man. In a quarter
of an hour I was ready to be taken up to my bed-
chamber. The solemn servant conducted me into a
prettily furnished room—said, "Breakfast at nine
o'clock, sir"—looked all round him to see that
everything was in its proper place—and noiselessly
withdrew.
"What shall I see in my dreams to-night?" I
thought to myself, as I put out the candle; "the
woman in white? or the unknown inhabitants of this
Cumberland mansion?" It was a strange sensation to
be sleeping in the house, like a friend of the family,
and yet not to know one of the inmates, even by
sight!


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 45
VI.
When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind,
the sea opened before me joyously under the broad
August sunlight, and the distant coast of Scotland
fringed the horizon with its lines of melting blue.
The view was such a surprise, and such a change to
me, after my weary London experience of brick and
mortar landscape, that I seemed to burst into a new
life and a new set of thoughts the moment I looked at
it. A confused sensation of having suddenly lost my
familiarity with the past, without acquiring any addi-
tional clearness of idea in reference to the present or
the future, took possession of my mind. Circumstances
that were but a few days old, faded back in my memory,
as if they had happened months and months since.
Pesca's quaint announcement of the means by which he
had procured me my present employment; the farewell
evening I had passed with my mother and sister; even
my mysterious adventure on the way home from
Hampstead, had all become like events which might
have occurred at some former epoch of my existence.
Although the woman in white was still in my mind,


46 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
the image of her seemed to have grown dull and faint
already.
A little before nine o'clock, I descended to the
ground-floor of the house. The solemn man-servant
of the night before met me wandering among the
passages, and compassionately showed me the way to
the breakfast-room.
My first glance round me, as the man opened the
door, disclosed a well-furnished breakfast-table, stand-
ing in the middle of a long room, with many windows
in it. I looked from the table to the window farthest
from me, and saw a lady standing at it, with her back
turned towards me. The instant my eyes rested on
her, I was struck by the rare beauty of her form, and
by the unaffected grace of her attitude. Her figure
was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed,
yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders with an
easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes
of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out
its natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully un-
deformed by stays. She had not heard my entrance
into the room; and I allowed myself the luxury of
admiring her for a few moments, before I moved one
of the chairs near me, as the least embarrassing means
of attracting her attention. She turned towards me
immediately. The easy elegance of every movement
of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance
from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of
expectation to see her face clearly. She left the


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 47
window—and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She
moved forward a few steps—and I said to myself, The
lady is young. She approached nearer—and I said to
myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to
express), The lady is ugly!
Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature
cannot err, more flatly contradicted—never was the
fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and
startingly belied by the face and head that crowned it.
The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark
down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She
had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; pro-
minent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick,
coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her
forehead. Her expression—bright, frank, and intelli-
gent—appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether
wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and
pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest
woman alive is beauty incomplete. To see such a
face as this set on shoulders that a sculptor would
have longed to model—to be charmed by the modest
graces of action through which the symmetrical limbs
betrayed their beauty when they moved, and then to
be almost repelled by the masculine form and mascu-
line look of the features in which the perfectly shaped
figure ended—was to feel a sensation oddly akin to
the helpless discomfort familiar to us all in sleep, when
we recognise yet cannot reconcile the anomalies and
contradictions of a dream.


48 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Mr. Hartright?" said the lady, interrogatively;
her dark face lighting up with a smile, and softening
and growing womanly the moment she began to speak.
"We resigned all hope of you last night, and went to
bed as usual. Accept my apologies for our apparent
want of attention; and allow me to introduce myself
as one of your pupils. Shall we shake hands? I
suppose we must come to it sooner or later—and why
not sooner?"
These odd words of welcome were spoken in a clear,
ringing, pleasant voice. The offered hand—rather
large, but, beautifully formed—was given to me with
the easy, unaffected self-reliance of a highly-bred
woman. We sat down together at the breakfast-table
in as cordial and customary a manner as if we had
known each other for years, and had met at Lim-
meridge House to talk over old times by previous
appointment.
"I hope you come here good-humouredly deter-
mined to make the best of your position," continued
the lady. "You will have to begin this morning by
putting up with no other company at breakfast than
mine. My sister is in her own room, nursing that
essentially feminine malady, a slight headache; and
her old governess, Mrs. Vesey, is charitably attending
on her with restorative tea. My uncle, Mr. Fairlie,
never joins us at any of our meals: he is an invalid,
and keeps bachelor state in his own apartments.
There is nobody else in the house but me. Two


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 49
young ladies have been staying here, but they went
away yesterday, in despair; and no wonder. All
through their visit (in consequence of Mr. Fairlie's
invalid condition) we produced no such convenience in
the house as a flirtable, danceable, small-talkable
creature of the male sex; and the consequence was,
we did nothing but quarrel, especially at dinner-time.
How can you expect four women to dine together
alone every day, and not quarrel? We are such
fools, we can't entertain each other at table. You see
I don't think much of my own sex, Mr. Hartright—
which will you have, tea or coffee ?—no woman does
think much of her own sex, although few of them
confess it as freely as I do. Dear me, you look
puzzled. Why? Are you wondering what you will
have for breakfast? or are you surprised at my care-
less way of talking? In the first case, I advise you,
as a friend, to have nothing to do with that cold ham
at your elbow, and to wait till the omelette comes in.
In the second case, I will give you some tea to com-
pose your spirits, and do all a woman can (which is
very little, by-the-by) to hold my tongue."
She handed me my cup of tea, laughing gaily. Her
light flow of talk, and her lively familiarity of manner
with a total stranger, were accompanied by an un-
affected naturalness and an easy inborn confidence in
herself and her position, which would have secured her
the respect of the most audacious man breathing.
While it was impossible to be formal and reserved in
VOL. I. D


50 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
her company, it was more than impossible to take the
faintest vestige of a liberty with her, even in thought.
I felt this instinctively, even while I caught the in-
fection of her own bright gaiety of spirits—even while
• I did my best to answer her in her own frank, lively
way.
"Yes, yes," she said, when I had suggested the
only explanation I could offer, to account for my per-
plexed looks, "I understand, You are such a per-
fect stranger in the house, that you are puzzled by my
familiar references to the worthy inhabitants. Natural
enough: I ought to have thought of it before. At
any rate, I can set it right now. Suppose I begin
with myself, so as to get done with that part of the
subject as soon as possible? My name is Marian
Halcombe; and I am as inaccurate, as women usually
are, in calling Mr. Fairlie my uncle, and Miss Fairlie
my sister. My mother was twice married: the first
time to Mr. Halcombe, my father; the second time to
Mr. Fairlie, my half-sister's father. Except that we
are both orphans, we are in every respect as unlike
each other as possible. My father was a poor man,
and Miss Fairlie's father was a rich man, I have got
nothing, and she has a fortune. I am dark and ugly,
and she is fair and pretty. Everybody thinks me
crabbed and odd (with perfect justice); and everybody
thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more
justice still). In short, she is an angel; and I am
Try some of that marmalade, Mr. Hartright, and
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 51
finish the sentence, in the name of female propriety,
for yourself. What am I to tell you about Mr.
Fairlie? Upon my honour, I hardly know. He is
sure to send for you after breakfast, and you can
study him for yourself. In the mean time, I may in-
form you, first, that he is the late Mr. Fairlie's younger
brother; secondly, that he is a single man; and,
thirdly, that he is Miss Fairlie's guardian. I won't
live without her, and she can't live without me; and
that is how I come to be at Limmeridge House. My
sister and I are honestly fond of each other; which,
you will say, is perfectly unaccountable, under the cir-
cumstances, and I quite agree with you—but so it is.
You must please both of us, Mr. Hartright, or please
neither of us: and, what is still more trying, you will
be thrown entirely upon our society. Mrs. Vesey is
an excellent person, who possesses all the cardinal
virtues, and counts for nothing; and Mr. Fairlie is too
great an invalid to be a companion for anybody. I
don't know what is the matter with him, and the
doctors don't know what is the matter with him, and
he doesn't know himself what is the matter with him.
We all say it's on the nerves, and we none of us know
what we mean when we say it. However, I advise
you to humour his little peculiarities, when you see
him to-day. Admire his collection of coins, prints,
and water-colour drawings, and you will win his heart.
Upon my word, if you can be contented with a quiet
country life, I don't see why you should not get on
i> 2


52 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
very well here. From breakfast to lunch, Mr. Fairlie's
drawings will occupy you. After lunch, Miss Fairlie
and I shoulder our sketch-books, and go out to misre-
present nature, under your directions. Drawing is herfavourite whim, mind, not mine. Women can't draw
—their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too
inattentive. No matter—my sister likes it; so I
waste paint and spoil paper, for her sake, as com-
posedly as any woman in England. As for the even-
ings, I think we can help you through them. Miss
Fairlie plays delightfully. For my own poor part, I
don't know one note of music from the other; but I
can match you at chess, backgammon, ecarte, and
(with the inevitable female drawbacks) even at billiards
as well. What do you think of the programme?
Can you reconcile yourself to our quiet, regular life?
or do you mean to be restless, and secretly thirst for
change and adventure, in the humdrum atmosphere of
Limmeridge House?"
She had run on thus far, in her gracefully bantering
way, with no other interruptions on my part than the
unimportant replies which politeness required of me.
The turn of the expression, however, in her last ques-
tion, or rather the one chance word, "adventure,"
lightly as it fell from her lips, recalled my thoughts to
my meeting with the woman in white, and urged me
to discover the connexion which the stranger's own re-
ference to Mrs. Fairlie informed me must once have
existed between the nameless fugitive from the


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 53
Asylum, and the former mistress of Limmeridge
House.
"Even if I were the most restless of mankind," I
said, "I should be in no danger of thirsting after
adventures for some time to come. The very night
before I arrived at this house, I met with an adven-
ture; and the wonder and excitement of it, I can
assure you, Miss Halcombe, will last me for the whole
term of my stay in Cumberland, if not for a much
longer period."
"You don't say so, Mr. Hartright! May I hear it?"
"You have a claim to hear it. The chief person in
the adventure was a total stranger to me, and may
perhaps be a total stranger to you; but she cer-
tainly mentioned the name of the late Mrs. Fairlie in
terms of the sincerest gratitude and regard."
"Mentioned my mother's name! You interest me
indescribably. Pray go on."
I at once related the circumstances under which I
had met the woman in white, exactly as they had
occurred; and I repeated what she had said to me
about Mrs. Fairlie and Limmeridge House, word for
word.
Miss Halcombe's bright resolute eyes looked eagerly
into mine, from the beginning of the narrative to the
end. Her face expressed vivid interest and astonish-
ment, but nothing more. She was evidently as far
from knowing of any clue to the mystery as I was
myself.


54 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Are you quite sure of those words referring to my
mother?" she asked.
"Quite sure," I replied. "Whoever she may be,
the woman was once at school in the village of Limme-
ridge, was treated with especial kindness by Mrs.
Fairlie, and, in grateful remembrance of that kindness,
feels an affectionate interest in all surviving members
of the family. She knew that Mrs. Fairlie and her
husband were both dead; and she spoke of Miss
Fairlie as if they had known each other when they
were children."
"You said, I think, that she denied belonging to
this place?"
"Yes, she told me she came from Hampshire."
"And you entirely failed to find out her name?"
"Entirely."
"Very strange. I think you were quite justified,
Mr. Hartright, in giving the poor creature her liberty,
for she seems to have done nothing in your presence to
show herself unfit to enjoy it. But I wish you had
been a little more resolute about finding out her name.
We must really clear up this mystery, in some way.
You had better not speak of it yet to Mr. Fairlie, or
to my sister. They are both of them, I am certain,
quite as ignorant of who the woman is, and of what
her past history in connexion with us can be, as I am
myself. But they are also, in widely different ways,
rather nervous and sensitive; and you would only
fidget one and alarm the other to no purpose. As for


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 55
myself, I am all aflame with curiosity, and I devote
my whole energies to the business of discovery from
this moment. When my mother came here, after her
second marriage, she certainly established the village
school just as it exists at the present time. But the
old teachers are all dead, or gone elsewhere; and no
enlightenment is to be hoped for from that quarter.
The only other alternative I can think of"
At this point we were interrupted by the entrance of
the servant, with a message from Mr. Fairlie, intimat-
ing that he would be glad to see me, as soon as I had
done breakfast.
"Wait in the hall," said Miss Halcombe, answer-
ing the servant for me, in her quick, ready way.
"Mr. Hartright will come out directly. I was about
to say," she went on, addressing me again, "that my
sister and I have a large collection of my mother's
letters, addressed to my father and to hers. In the
absence of any other means of getting information, I
will pass the morning in looking over my mother's cor-
respondence with Mr. Fairlie. He was fond of
London, and was constantly away from his country
home; and she was accustomed, at such times, to
write and report to him how things went on at Limme-
ridge. Her letters are full of references to the school
in which she took so strong an interest; and I think it
more than likely that I may have discovered something
when we meet again. The luncheon hour is two, Mr.
Hartright. I shall have the pleasure of introducing


56 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
you to my sister by that time, and we will occupy the
afternoon in driving round the neighbourhood and
showing you all our pet points of view. Till two
o'clock, then, farewell."
She nodded to me with the lively grace, the delight-
ful refinement of familiarity, which characterised all
that she did and all that she said; and disappeared by
a door at the lower end of the room. As soon as she
had left me, I turned my steps towards the hall, and
followed the servant on my way, for the first time, to
the presence of Mr. Fairlie.
>


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 57
VII.
My conductor led me up-stairs into a passage which
took us back to the bedchamber in which I had slept
during the past night; and opening the door next to
it, begged me to look in.
"I have my master's orders to show you your own
sitting-room, sir," said the man, "and to inquire if you
approve of the situation and the light."
I must have been hard to please, indeed, if I had
not approved of the room, and of everything about it.
The bow-window looked out on the same lovely view
which I had admired, in the morning, from my bed-
room. The furniture was the perfection of luxury and
beauty; the table in the centre was bright with gaily
bound books, elegant conveniences for writing, and
beautiful flowers; the second table near the window,
was covered with all the necessary materials for mount-
ing water-colour drawings, and had a little easel
attached to it, which I could expand or fold up at will;
the walls were hung with gaily tinted chintz; and the
floor was spread with Indian matting in maize-colour
and red. It was the prettiest and most luxurious little
d 3


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 59
stood inside the door, were chiffoniers and little stands
in buhl and marquetterie, loaded with figures in Dresden china, with rare vases, ivory ornaments, and
toys and curiosities that sparkled at all points with
gold, silver, and precious stones. At the lower end
of the room, opposite to me, the windows were con-
cealed and the sunlight was tempered by large blinds
of the same pale sea-green colour as the curtains over
the door. The light thus produced was deliciously
soft, mysterious, and subdued; it fell equally upon all
the objects in the room; it helped to intensify the
deep silence, and the air of profound seclusion that
possessed the place; and it surrounded, with an appro-
priate halo of repose, the solitary figure of the master
of the house, leaning back, listlessly composed, in a
large easy-chair, with a reading-easel fastened on one
of its arms, and a little table on the other.
If a man's personal appearance, when he is out of
his dressing-room, and when he has passed forty, can
be accepted as a safe guide to his time of life—which
is more than doubtful—Mr. Fairlie's age, when I saw
him, might have been reasonably computed at over
fifty and under sixty years. His beardless face was
thin, worn, and transparently pale, but not wrinkled;
his nose was high and hooked; his eyes were of a dim
grayish blue, large, prominent, and rather red round
the rims of the eyelids; his hair was scanty, soft to
look at, and of that light sandy colour which is the
last to disclose its own changes towards gray. He


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 61
frail white fingers were listlessly toying with something
which looked, to my uninstructed eyes, like a dirty
pewter medal with ragged edges, when I advanced
within a respectful distance of his chair, and stopped
to make my bow.
"So glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr. Hart-
right," he said, in a querulous, croaking voice, which
combined, in anything but an agreeable manner, a
discordantly high tone with a drowsily languid utter-
ance. '• Pray sit down. And don't trouble yourself
to move the chair, please. In the wretched state of
my nerves, movement of any kind is exquisitely painful
to me. Have you seen your studio? Will it do?"
"I have just come from seeing the room, Mr.
Fairlie; and I assure you"
He stopped me in the middle of the sentence, by
closing his eyes, and holding up one of his white hands
imploringly. I paused in astonishment; and the
croaking voice honoured me with this explanation:
"Pray excuse me. But could you contrive to speak
in a lower key? In the wretched state of my nerves,
loud sound of any kind is indescribable torture to me.
You will pardon an invalid? I only say to you what
the lamentable state of my health obliges me to
say to everybody. Yes. And you really like the
room r
"I could wish for nothing prettier and nothing more
comfortable," I answered, dropping my voice, and be-
ginning to discover already that Mr. Fairlie's selfish


62 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
affectation and Mr. Fairlie's wretched nerves meant
one and the same thing.
"So glad. You will find your position here, Mr.
Hartright, properly recognized. There is none of the
horrid English barbarity of feeling about the social
position of an artist, in this house. So much of my
early life has been passed abroad, that I have quite
cast my insular skin in that respect. I wish I could
say the same of the gentry—detestable word, but I
suppose I must use it—of the gentry in the neighbour-
hood. They are sad Goths in Art, Mr. Hartright.
People, I do assure you, who would have opened their
eyes in astonishment, if they had seen Charles the
Fifth pick up Titian's brush for him. Do you mind
putting this tray of coins back in the cabinet, and
giving me the next one to it? In the wretched state of
my nerves, exertion of any kind is unspeakably dis-
agreeable to me. Yes. Thank you."
As a practical commentary on the liberal social
theory which he had just favoured me by illustrating,
Mr. Fairlie's cool request rather amused me. I put
back one drawer and gave him the other, with all pos-
sible politeness. He began trifling with the new set
of coins and the little brushes immediately; languidly
looking at them and admiring them all the time he
was speaking to me.
"A thousand thanks and a thousand excuses. Do
you like coins? Yes. So glad we have another taste
in common besides our taste for Art. Now, about the


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. G3
pecuniary arrangements between us—do tell me—are
they satisfactory?"
"Most satisfactory, Mr. Fairlie."
"So glad. And—what next? Ah! I remember.
Yes. In reference to the consideration which you are
good enough to accept for giving me the benefit of
your accomplishments in art, my steward will wait on
you at the end of the first week, to ascertain your
wishes. And—what next? Curious, is it not? I
had a great deal more to say; and I appear to have
quite forgotten it. Do you mind touching the bell?
In that corner. Yes. Thank you."
I rang; and a new servant noiselessly made his
appearance—a foreigner, with a set smile and per-
fectly brushed hair—a valet every inch of him.
"Louis," said Mr. Fairlie, dreamily dusting the
tips of his fingers with one of the tiny brushes for the
coins, "I made some entries in my tablettes this morn-
ing. Find my tablettes. A thousand pardons, Mr.
Hartright, I'm afraid I bore you."
As he wearily closed his eyes again, before I could
answer, and as he did most assuredly bore me, I sat
silent, and looked up at the Madonna and Child by
Raphael. In the mean time, the valet left the room,
and returned shortly with a little ivory book. Mr.
Fairlie, after first relieving himself by a gentle sigh,
let the book drop open with one hand, and held up the
tiny brush with the other, as a sign to the servant to
wait for further orders.


64 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Yes. Just so!" said Mr. Fairlie, consulting the
tablettes. "Louis, take down that portfolio." He
pointed, as he spoke, to several portfolios placed near
the window, on mahogany stands. "No. Not the
one with the green back—that contains my Rembrandt
etchings, Mr. Hartright. Do you like etchings? Yes?
So glad we have another taste in common. The port-
folio with the red back, Louis. Don't drop it! You
have no idea of the tortures I should suffer, Mr. Hart-
right, if Louis dropped that portfolio. Is it safe on
the chair? Do youthink it safe, Mr. Hartright?
Yes? So glad. Will you oblige me by looking at
the drawings, if you really think they are quite safe.
Louis, go away. What an ass you are. Don't you
see me holding the tablettes? Do you suppose I want
to hold them? Then why not relieve me of the
tablettes without being told? A thousand pardons,
Mr. Hartright; servants are such asses, are they not?
Do tell me—what do you think of the drawings?
They have come from a sale in a shocking state—I
thought they smelt of horrid dealers' and brokers'
fingers when I looked at them last. Can you under-
take them?"
Although my nerves were not delicate enough to
detect the odour of plebeian fingers which had offended
Mr. Fairlie's nostrils, my taste was sufficiently educated
to enable me to appreciate the value of the drawings,
while I turned them over. They were, for the most
part, really fine specimens of English water-colour


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 65
Art; and they had deserved much better treatment
at the hands of their former possessor than they ap-
peared to have received.
"The drawings," I answered, "require careful
straining and mounting; and, in my opinion, they are
well worth"
"I beg your pardon," interposed Mr. Fairlie. "Do
you mind my closing my eyes while you speak? Even
this light is too much for them. Yes?"
"I was about to say that the drawings are well
worth all the time and trouble"
Mr. Fairlie suddenly opened his eyes again, and
rolled them with an expression of helpless alarm in
the direction of the window.
"I entreat you to excuse me, Mr. Hartright," he
said, in a feeble flutter. "But surely I hear some horrid children in the garden—my private garden—
below?"
"I can't say, Mr. Fairlie. I heard nothing my-
self."
"Oblige me—you have been so very good in
humouring my poor nerves—oblige me by lifting up
a corner of the blind. Don't let the sun in on me,
Mr. Hartright! Have you got the blind up? Yes?
Then will you be so very kind as to look into the
garden and make quite sure?"
I complied with this new request. The garden was
carefully walled in, all round. Not a human creature,
large or small, appeared in any part of the sacred


66 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
seclusion. I reported that gratifying fact to Mr.
Fairlie.
"A thousand thanks. My fancy, I suppose. There
are no children, thank Heaven, in the house; but the
servants (persons born without nerves) will encourage
the children from the village. Such brats—oh, dear
me, such brats! Shall I confess it, Mr. Hartright?
—I sadly want a reform in the construction of children.
Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines
for the production of incessant noise. Surely our
delightful Raffaello's conception is infinitely prefer-
able r
He pointed to the picture of the Madonna, the
upper part of which represented the conventional
cherubs of Italian Art, celestially provided with sitting
accommodation for their chins, on balloons of buff-
coloured cloud.
"Quite a model family!" said Mr. Fairlie, leering
at the cherubs. "Such nice round faces, and such
nice soft wings, and—nothing else. No dirty little
legs to run about on, and no noisy little lungs to
scream with. How immeasurably superior to the
existing construction I I will close my eyes again, if
you will allow me. And you really can manage the
drawings? So glad. Is there anything else to settle?
if there is, I think I have forgotten it. Shall we ring
for Louis again?"
Being, by this time, quite as anxious, on my side,
as Mr. Fairlie evidently was on his, to bring the inter-


68 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
pains not to let the doors bang, and not to drop the port-
folio? Thank you. Gently with the curtains, please
—the slightest noise from them goes through me like
a knife. Yes. Good morning 1"
When the sea-green curtains were closed, and when
the two baize doors were shut behind me, I stopped
for a moment in the little circular hall beyond, and
drew a long, luxurious breath of relief. It was like
coming to the surface of the water, after deep diving,
to find myself once more on the outside of Mr. Fairlie's
room.
As soon as I was comfortably established for the
morning in my pretty little studio, the first resolution
at which I arrived was to turn my steps no more in
the direction of the apartments occupied by the master
of the house, except in the very improbable event of
his honouring me with a special invitation to pay him
another visit. Having settled this satisfactory plan of
future conduct, in reference to Mr. Fairlie, I soon
recovered the serenity of temper of which my em-
ployer's haughty familiarity and impudent politeness
had, for the moment, deprived me. The remaining
hours of the morning passed away pleasantly enough,
in looking over the drawings, arranging them in sets,
trimming their ragged edges, and accomplishing the
other necessary preparations in anticipation of the busi-
ness of mounting them. I ought, perhaps, to have
made more progress than this; but, as the luncheon-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 69
time drew near, I grew restless and unsettled, and felt
unable to fix my attention on work, even though that
work was only of the humble manual kind.
At two o'clock, I descended again to the breakfast-
room, a little anxiously. Expectations of some interest
were connected with my approaching reappearance in
that part of the house. My introduction to Miss
Fairlie was now close at hand; and, if Miss Hal-
combe's search through her mother's letters had pro-
duced the result which she anticipated, the time had
come for clearing up the mystery of the woman in
white.


70 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
VIII.
When I entered the room, I found Miss Halcombe
and an elderly lady seated at the luncheon-table.
The elderly lady, when I was presented to her,
proved to be Miss Fairlie's former governess, Mrs.
Vesey, who had been briefly described to me by my
lively companion at the breakfast-table, as possessed
of " all the cardinal virtues, and counting for nothing."
I can do little more than offer my humble testimony to
the truthfulness of Miss Halcombe's sketch of the old
lady's character. Mrs. Vesey looked the personifica-
tion of human composure, and female amiability. A
calm enjoyment of a calm existence beamed in drowsy
smiles on her plump, placid face. Some of us rush
through life; and some of us saunter through life.
Mrs. Vesey sat through life. Sat in the house, early
and late; sat in the garden; sat in unexpected
window-seats in passages; sat (on a camp-stool) when
her friends tried to take her out walking; sat before
she looked at anything, before she talked of anything,
before she answered, Yes, or No, to the commonest
question—always with the same serene smile on her


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 71
lips, the same vacantly attentive turn of her head, the
same snugly-comfortable position of her hands and
arms, under every possible change of domestic circum-
stances. A mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil
and harmless old lady, who never by any chance
suggested the idea that she had been actually alive
since the hour of her birth. Nature has so much to
do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a
vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must
surely be now and then too flurried and confused to
distinguish between the different processes that she is
carrying on at the same time. Starting from this
point of view, it will always remain my private per-
suasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages
when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady
suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation
in the mind of the Mother of us all.
"Now, Mrs. Vesey," said Miss Halcombe, looking
brighter, sharper, and readier than ever, by contrast
with the undemonstrative old lady at her side, "what
will you have? A cutlet?"
Mrs. Vesey crossed her dimpled hands on the
edge of the table; smiled placidly; and said, " Yes,
dear."
"What is that opposite Mr. Hartright? Boiled
chicken, is it not? I thought you liked boiled chicken
better than cutlet, Mrs. Vesey?"
Mrs. Vesey took her dimpled hands off the edge of
the table and crossed them on her lap instead; nodded


72 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
contemplatively at the boiled chicken, and said, "Yes,
dear."
"Well, but which will you have, to-day? Shall
Mr. Hartright give you some chicken? or shall I
give you some outlet ?"
Mrs. Vesey put one of her dimpled hands back
again on the edge of the table; hesitated drowsily;
and said, " Which you please, dear."
"Mercy on me! it's a question for your taste, my
good lady, not for mine. Suppose you have a little of
both? and suppose you begin with the chicken, be-
cause Mr. Hartright looks devoured by anxiety to
carve for you."
Mrs. Vesey put the other dimpled hand back on the
edge of the table; brightened dimly, one moment;
went out again, the next; bowed obediently; and said,
"If you please, sir."
Surely a mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil
and harmless old lady? But enough, perhaps, for the
present, of Mrs. Vesey.
All this time, there were no signs of Miss Fairlie.
We finished our luncheon; and still she never ap-
peared. Miss Halcombe, whose quick eye nothing
escaped, noticed the looks that I cast, from time to
time, in the direction of the door.
"I understand you, Mr. Hartright," she said;
"you are wondering what has become of your other
pupil. She has been down stairs, and has got over


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 73
her headache; but has not sufficiently recovered her
appetite to join us at lunch. If you will put your-
self under my charge, I think I can undertake to find
her somewhere in the garden."
She took up a parasol, lying on a chair near her,
and led the way out, by a long window at the bottom
of the room, which opened on to the lawn. It is
almost unnecessary to say that we left Mrs. Vesey
still seated at the table, with her dimpled hands still
crossed on the edge of it; apparently settled in that
position for the rest of the afternoon.
As we crossed the lawn, Miss Halcombe looked at
me significantly, and shook her head.
"That mysterious adventure of yours," she said,
"istill remains involved in its own appropriate mid-
night darkness. I have been all the morning looking
over my mother's letters, and I have made no dis-
coveries yet. However, don't despair, Mr. Hartright.
This is a matter of curiosity; and you have got a
woman for your ally. Under such conditions success
is certain, sooner or later. The letters are not ex-
hausted. I have three packets still left, and you may
confidently rely on my spending the whole evening over
them."
Here, then, was one of my anticipations of the
morning still unfulfilled. I began to wonder, next,
whether my introduction to Miss Fairlie would dis-
appoint the expectations that I had been forming of
her since breakfast-time.
VOL. I. E


74 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"And how did you get on with Mr. Fairlie?" in-
quired Miss Halcombe, as we left the lawn and turned
into a shrubbery. "Was he particularly nervous
this morning? Never mind considering about your
answer, Mr. Hartright. The mere fact of your
being obliged to consider is enough for me. I see in
your face that he was particularly nervous; and, as I
am amiably unwilling to throw you into the same con-
dition, I ask no more."
We turned off into a winding path while she was
speaking, and approached a pretty summer-house,
built of wood, in the form of a miniature Swiss chalet.
The one room of the summer-house, as we ascended the
steps at the door, was occupied by a young lady. She
was standing near a rustic table, looking out at the
inland view of moor and hill presented by a gap in the
trees, and absently turning over the leaves of a little
sketch-book that lay at her side. This was Miss Fairlie.
How can I describe her? How can I separate her
from my own sensations, and from all that has happened
in the later time? How can I see her again as she
looked when my eyes first rested on her—as she should
look, now, to the eyes that are about to see her in
these pages?
The water-colour drawing that I made of Laura
Fairlie, at an after period, in the place and attitude in
which I first saw her, lies on my desk while I write. I
look at it, and there dawns upon me brightly, from the
dark greenish-brown background of the summer-house,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 75
a light, youthful figure, clothed in a simple muslin
dress, the pattern of it formed by broad alternate
strips of delicate blue and white. A scarf of the
same material sits crisply and closely round her
shoulders, and a little straw hat of the natural colour,
plainly and sparingly trimmed with ribbon to match
the gown, covers her head, and throws its soft pearly
shadow over the upper part of her face. Her hair is
of so faint and pale a brown—not flaxen, and yet
almost as light; not golden, and yet almost as glossy
—that it nearly melts, here and there, into the shadow
of the hat. It is plainly parted and drawn back over
her ears, and the line of it ripples naturally as it crosses
her forehead. The eyebrows are rather darker than
the hair; and the eyes are of that soft, limpid, tur-
quoise blue, so often sung by the poets, so seldom seen
in real life. Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form
—large and tender and quietly thoughtful—but beau-
tiful above all things in the clear truthfulness of look
that dwells in their inmost depths, and shines through
all their changes of expression with the light of a
purer and a better world. The charm—most gently
and yet most distinctly expressed—which they shed
over the whole face, so covers and transforms its little
natural human blemishes elsewhere, that it is diffi-
cult to estimate the relative merits and defects of the
other features. It is hard to see that the lower part
of the face is too delicately refined away towards the
chin to be in full and fair proportion with the upper
E 2


76 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
part; that the nose, in escaping the aquiline bend
(always hard and cruel in a woman, no matter how
abstractedly perfect it may be), has erred a little in
the other extreme, and has missed the ideal straight-
ness of line; and that the sweet, sensitive lips are
subject to a slight nervous contraction, when she
smiles, which draws them upward a little at one
corner, towards the cheek. It might be possible to
note these blemishes in another woman's face, but it
is not easy to dwell on them in hers, so subtly are they
connected with all that is individual and characteristic
in her expression, and so closely does the expression
depend for its full play and life, in every other feature,
on the moving impulse of the eyes.
Does my poor portrait of her, my fond, patient
labour of long and happy days, show me these things?
Ah, how few of them are in the dim mechanical draw-
ing, and how many in the mind with which I regard
it! A fair, delicate girl, in a pretty light dress,
trifling with the leaves of a sketch-book, while she
looks up from it with truthful, innocent blue eyes—
that is all the drawing can say; all, perhaps, that even
the deeper reach of thought and pen can say in their
language, either. The woman who first gives life,
light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty,
fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained
unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie
too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are
touched, at such times, by other charms than those


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 77
which the senses feel and which the resources of ex-
pression can realise. The mystery which underlies
the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of
all expression until it has claimed kindred with the
deeper mystery in our own souls. Then, and then
only, has it passed beyond the narrow region on which
light falls, in this world, from the pencil and the
pen.
Think of her as you thought of the first woman who
quickened the pulses within you that the rest of her
sex had no art to stir. Let the kind, candid blue eyes
meet yours, as they met mine, with the one matchless
look which we both remember so well. Let her voice
speak the music that you once loved best, attuned as
sweetly to your ear as to mine. Let her footstep, as
she comes and goes, in these pages, be like that other
footstep to whose airy fall your own heart once beat
time. Take her as the visionary nursling of your own
fancy; and she will grow upon you, all the more
clearly, as the living woman who dwells in mine.
Among the sensations that crowded on me, when
my eyes first looked upon her—familiar sensations
which we all know, which spring to life in most of our
hearts, die again in so many, and renew their bright
existence in so few—there was one that troubled and
perplexed me; one that seemed strangely inconsistent
and unaccountably out of place in Miss Fairlie's pre-
sence.
Mingling with the vivid impression produced by the


78 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
charm of her fair face and head, her sweet expression,
and her winning simplicity of manner, was another im-
pression, which, in a shadowy way, suggested to me
the idea of something wanting. At one time it seemed
like something wanting in her; at another, like some-
thing wanting in myself, which hindered me from un-
derstanding her as I ought. The impression was
always strongest, in the most contradictory manner,
when she looked at me; or, in other words, when I
was most conscious of the harmony and charm of her
face, and yet, at the same time, most troubled by the
sense of an incompleteness which it was impossible to
discover. Something wanting, something wanting—
and where it was, and what it was, I could not say.
The effect of this curious caprice of fancy (as I
thought it then) was not of a nature to set me at my
ease, during a first interview with Miss Fairlie. The
few kind words of welcome which she spoke found me
hardly self-possessed enough to thank her in the cus-
tomary phrases of reply. Observing my hesitation,
and no doubt attributing it, naturally enough, to some
momentary shyness on my part, Miss Halcombe took
the business of talking, as easily and readily as usual,
into her own hands.
"Look there, Mr. Hartright," she said, pointing to
the sketch-book on the table, and to the little delicate
wandering hand that was still trifling with it. "Surely
you will acknowledge that your model pupil is found
at last? The moment she hears that you are in. the
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 79
house, she seizes her inestimable sketch-book, looks
universal Nature straight in the face, and longs to
begin!"
Miss Fairlie laughed with a ready good-humour,
which broke out as brightly as if it had been part of
the sunshine above us, over her lovely face.
"I must not take credit to myself where no credit
is due," she said, her clear, truthful blue eyes looking
alternately at Miss Halcombe and at me. "Fond as
I am of drawing, I am so conscious of my own igno-
rance that lam more afraid than anxious to begin.
Now I know you are here, Mr. Hartright, I find my-
self looking over my sketches, as I used to look over
my lessons when I was a little girl, and when I was
sadly afraid that I should turn out not fit to be
heard."
She made the confession very prettily and simply,
and, with quaint, childish earnestness, drew the sketch-
book away close to her own side of the table. Miss
Halcombe cut the knot- of the little embarrassment
forthwith, in her resolute, downright way.
"Good, bad, or indifferent," she said, "the pupil's
sketches must pass through the fiery ordeal of the
master's judgment—and there's an end of it. Sup-
pose we take them with us in the carriage, Laura, and
let Mr. Hartright see them, for the first time, under
circumstances of perpetual jolting and interruption?
If we can only confuse him all through the drive,
between Nature as it is, when he looks up at the view,


80 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
and Nature as it is not, when he looks down again at
our sketch-books, we shall drive him into the last des-
perate refuge of paying us compliments, and shall slip
through his professional fingers with our pet feathers
of vanity all unruffled."
"I hope Mr. Hartright will pay me no compli-
ments," said Miss Fairlie, as we all left the summer-
house.
"May I venture to inquire why you express that
hope?" I asked.
"Because I shall believe all that you say to me,"
she answered, simply.
In those few words she unconsciously gave me the
key to her whole character; to that generous trust in
others which, in her nature, grew innocently out of the
sense of her own truth. I only knew it intuitively then.
I know it by experience now.
We merely waited to rouse good Mrs. Vesey from the
place which she still occupied at the deserted luncheon-
table, before we entered the open carriage for our
promised drive. The old lady and Miss Halcombe
occupied the back seat; and Miss Fairlie and I sat
together in front, with the sketch-book open between
us, fairly exhibited at last to my professional eyes.
All serious criticism on the drawings, even if I had
been disposed to volunteer it, was rendered impossible
by Miss Halcombe's lively resolution to see nothing
but the ridiculous side of the Fine Arts, as practised
by herself, her sister, and ladies in general. I can
>


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 81
remember the conversation that passed far more easily
than the sketches that I mechanically looked over.
That part of the talk, especially, in which Miss Fairlie
took any share is still as vividly impressed on my
memory as if I had heard it only a few hours ago.
Yes! let me acknowledge that, on this first day, I
let the charm of her presence lure me from the recol-
lection of myself and my position. The most trifling
of the questions that she put to me, on the subject of
using her pencil and mixing her colours; the slightest
alterations of expression in the lovely eyes that looked
into mine, with such an earnest desire to learn all that
I could teach, and to discover all that I could show,
attracted more of my attention than the finest view we
passed through, or the grandest changes of light and
shade, as they flowed into each other over the waving
moorland and the level beach. At any time, and
under any circumstances of human interest, is it not
strange to see how little real hold the objects of the
natural world amid which we live can gain on our
hearts and minds? We go to Nature for comfort in
trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. Admira-
tion of those beauties of the inanimate world, which
modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes,
is not, even in the best of us, one of the original
instincts of our nature. As children, we none of us
possess it. No uninstructed man or woman possesses
it. Those whose lives are most exclusively passed
amid the ever-changing wonders of sea and land are
E 3


82 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
also those who are most universally insensible to every
aspect of Nature not directly associated with the
human interest of their calling. Our capacity of
appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in
truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we
all learn, as an Art; and, more, that very capacity is
rarely practised by any of us except when our minds
are most indolent and most unoccupied. How much
share have the attractions of Nature ever had in the
pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of our-
selves or our friends? What space do they ever
occupy in the thousand little narratives of personal
experience which pass every day by word of mouth
from one of us to the other? All that our minds can
compass, all that our hearts can learn, can be accom-
plished with equal certainty, equal profit, and equal
satisfaction to ourselves, in the poorest as in the richest
prospect that the face of the earth can show. There
is surely a reason for this want of inborn sympathy
between the creature and the creation around it, a
reason which may perhaps be found in the widely dif-
fering destinies of man and his earthly sphere. The
grandest mountain prospect that the eye can range
over is appointed to annihilation. The smallest human
interest that the pure heart can feel is appointed to
immortality.
We had been out nearly three hours, when the car-
riage again passed through the gates of Limmeridge
House.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. S3
On our way back, I had let the ladies settle for
themselves the first point of view which they were to
sketch, under my instructions, on the afternoon of the
next day. When they withdrew to dress for dinner,
and when I was alone again in my little sitting-room,
my spirits seemed to leave me on a sudden. I felt ill
at ease and dissatisfied with myself, I hardly knew
why. Perhaps I was now conscious, for the first time,
of having enjoyed our drive too much in the character
of a guest, and too little in the character of a drawing-
master. Perhaps that strange sense of something
wanting, either in Miss Fairlie or in myself, which had
perplexed me when I was first introduced to her,
haunted me still. Anyhow, it was a relief to my
spirits when the dinner-hour called me out of my soli-
tude, and took me back to the society of the ladies of
the house.
I was struck, on entering the drawing-room, by the
curious contrast, rather in material than in colour, of
the dresses which they now wore. While Mrs. Vesey
and Miss Halcombe were richly clad (each in the
manner most becoming to her age), the first in silver-
gray, and the second in that delicate primrose-yellow
colour which matches so well with a dark complexion
and black hair, Miss Fairlie was unpretendingly and
almost poorly dressed in plain white muslin. It was spot-
lessly pure; it was beautifully put on; but still it was
the sort of dress which the wife or daughter of a poor
man might have worn; and it made her, so far as


84 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
externals went, look less affluent in circumstances than
her own governess. At a later period, when I learnt
to know more of Miss Fairlie's character, I discovered
that this curious contrast, on the wrong side, was due
to her natural delicacy of feeling and natural intensity
of aversion to the slightest personal display of her own
wealth. Neither Mrs. Vesey nor Miss Halcombe
could ever induce her to let the advantage in dress
desert the two ladies who were poor, to lean to the side
of the one lady who was rich.
When the dinner was over, we returned together to
the drawing-room. Although Mr. Fairlie (emulating
the magnificent condescension of the monarch who had
picked up Titian's brush for him) had instructed his
butler to consult my wishes in relation to the wine
that I might prefer after dinner, I was resolute enough
to resist the temptation of sitting in solitary grandeur
among bottles of my own choosing, and sensible
enough to ask the ladies' permission to leave the table
with them habitually, on the civilised foreign plan,
during the period of my residence at Limmeridge
House.
The drawing-room, to which we had now withdrawn
for the rest of the evening, was on the ground-floor,
and was of the same shape and size as the breakfast-
room. Large glass doors at the lower end opened on
to a terrace, beautifully ornamented along its whole
length with a profusion of flowers. The soft, hazy
twilight was just shading leaf and blossom alike into


86 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
to hover over us with a gentler influence still, when
there stole upon it from the piano the heavenly tender-
ness of the music of Mozart. It was an evening of
sights and sounds never to forget.
We all sat silent in the places we had chosen—Mrs.
Vesey still sleeping, Miss Fairlie still playing, Miss
Halcombe still reading—till the light failed us. By
this time the moon had stolen round to the terrace,
and soft, mysterious rays of light were slanting already
across the lower end of the room. The change from
the twilight obscurity was so beautiful, that we ba-
nished the lamps, by common consent, when the servant
brought them in; and kept the large room unlighted,
except by the glimmer of the two candles at the
piano.
For half an hour more, the music still went on.
After that, the beauty of the moonlight view on the
terrace tempted Miss Fairlie out to look at it; and I
followed her. When the candles at the piano had
been lighted, Miss Halcombe had changed her place,
so as to continue her examination of the letters by
their assistance. We left her, on a low chair, at one
side of the instrument, so absorbed over her reading
that she did not seem to notice when we moved.
We had been out on the terrace together, just in
front of the glass doors, hardly so long as five minutes,
I should think; and Miss Fairlie was, by my advice,
just tying her white handkerchief over her head as
a precaution against the night air—when I heard Miss
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 87
Halcorabe's voice—low, eager, and altered from its
natural lively tone—pronounce my name.
"Mr. Hartright," she said, "will you come here for
a minute? I want to speak to you."
I entered the room again immediately. The piano
stood about half way down along the inner wall. On
the side of the instrument farthest from the terrace,
Miss Halcombe was sitting with the letters scattered
on her lap, and with one in her hand selected from
them, and held close to the candle. On the side
nearest to the terrace there stood a low ottoman, on
which I took my place. In this position, I was not far
from the glass doors; and I could see Miss Fairlie
plainly, as she passed and repassed the opening on to
the terrace; walking slowly from end to end of it in
the full radiance of the moon.
"I want you to listen while I read the concluding
passages in this letter," said Miss Halcombe. "Tell
me if you think they throw any light upon your strange
adventure on the road to London. The letter is
addressed by my mother to her second husband, Mr.
Fairlie; and the date refers to a period of between
eleven and twelve years since. At that time, Mr. and
Mrs. Fairlie, and my half-sister Laura, had been living
for years in this house; and I was away from them,
completing my education at a school in Paris."
She looked and spoke earnestly, and, as I thought,
a little uneasily, as well. At the moment when she
raised the letter to the candle before beginning to read


88 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
it, Miss Fairlie passed us on the terrace, looked in
for a moment, and, seeing that we were engaged,
slowly walked on.
Miss Halcombe began to read, as follows:
"' You will be tired, my dear Philip, of hearing
perpetually about my schools and my scholars. Lay
the blame, pray, on the dull uniformity of life at
Limmeridge, and not on me. Besides, this time,
I have something really interesting to tell you about
a new scholar.
. "' You know old Mrs. Kempe, at the village shop.
Well, after years of ailing, the doctor has at last given
her up, and she is dying slowly, day by day. Her
only living relation, a sister, arrived last week to take
care of her. This sister comes all the way from
Hampshire—her name is Mrs. Catherick. Four days
ago Mrs. Catherick came here to see me, and brought
her only child with her, a sweet little girl about a year
older than our darling Laura '"
As the last sentence fell from the reader's lips,
Miss Fairlie passed us on the terrace once more. She
was softly singing to herself one of the melodies which
she had been playing earlier in the evening. Miss
Halcombe waited till she had passed out of sight
again; and then went on with the letter:
"' Mrs. Catherick is a decent, well-behaved, re-
spectable woman; middle aged, and with the remains
v


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 89
of having been moderately, only moderately, nice-
looking. There is something in her manner and her
appearance, however, which I can't make out. She
is reserved about herself to the point of downright
secrecy; and there is a look in her face—I can't
describe it—which suggests to me that she has some-
thing on her mind. She is altogether what you would
call a walking mystery. Her errand at Limmeridge
House, however, was simple enough. When she left
Hampshire to nurse her sister, Mrs. Kempe, through
her last illness, she had been obliged to bring her
daughter with her, through having no one at home to
take care of the little girl. Mrs. Kempe may die in
a week's time, or may linger on for months; and Mrs.
Catherick's object was to ask me to let her daughter,
Anne, have the benefit of attending my school; subject
to the condition of her being removed from it to go
home again with her mother, after Mrs. Kempe's death.
I consented at once; and when Laura and I went out
for our walk, we took the little girl (who is just eleven
years old) to the school, that very day.'"
Once more, Miss Fairlie's figure, bright and soft
in its snowy muslin dress—her face prettily framed by
the white folds of the handkerchief which she had tied
under her chin—passed by us in the moonlight. Once
more, Miss Halcombe waited till she was out of sight j
and then went on:
"' I have taken a violent fancy, Philip, to my new


90 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
scholar, for a reason which I mean to keep till the last
for the sake of surprising you. Her mother having
told me as little about the child as she told me of
herself, I was left to discover (which I did on the first
day when we tried her at lessons) that the poor little
thing's intellect is not developed as it ought to be at
her age. Seeing this, I had her up to the house the
next day, and privately arranged with the doctor to
come and watch her and question her, and tell me
what he thought. His opinion is that she will grow
out of it. But he says her careful bringing-up at
school is a matter of great importance just now,
because her unusual slowness in acquiring ideas im-
plies an unusual tenacity in keeping them, when they
are once received into her mind. Now, my love, you
must not imagine, in your off-hand way, that I have
been attaching myself to an idiot. This poor little
Anne Catherick is a sweet, affectionate, grateful girl;
and says the quaintest, prettiest things (as you shall
judge by an instance), in the most oddly sudden, sur-
prised, half-frightened way. Although she is dressed
very neatly, her clothes show a sad want of taste
in colour and pattern. So I arranged, yesterday,
that some of our darling Laura's old white frocks and
white hats should be altered for Anne Catherick;
explaining to her that little girls of her complexion
looked neater and better all in white than in anything
else. She hesitated and seemed puzzled for a minute;
then flushed up, and appeared to understand. Her


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 91
little hand clasped mine suddenly. She kissed it,
Philip; and said (oh, so earnestly!), "I will always
wear white as long as I live. It will help me to
remember you, ma'am, and to think that I am pleasing
you still, when I go away and see you no more."
This is only one specimen of the quaint things she says
so prettily. Poor little soul! She shall have a stock
of white frocks, made with good deep tucks, to let out
for her as she grows '"
Miss Halcombe paused, and looked at me across
the piano.
"Did the forlorn woman whom you met in the high
road seem young?" she asked. "Young enough to
be two or three-and-twenty?"
"Yes, Miss Halcombe, as young as that."
"And she was strangely dressed, from head to foot,
all in white?"
"All in white."
While the answer was passing my lips, Miss Fairlie
glided into view on the terrace, for the third time.
Instead of proceeding on her walk, she stopped, with
her back turned towards us; and, leaning on the
balustrade of the terrace, looked down into the garden
beyond. My eyes fixed upon the white gleam of her
muslin gown and head-dress in the moonlight, and
a sensation, for which I can find no name—a sensation
that quickened my pulse, and raised a fluttering at my
heart—began to steal over me.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 93
is, nevertheless, by one of those extraordinary caprices
of accidental resemblance which one sometimes sees,
the living likeness, in her hair, her complexion, the
colour of her eyes, and the shape of her face '"
I started up from the ottoman, before Miss Hal. combe could pronounce the next words. A thrill of
the same feeling which ran through me when the touch
was laid upon my shoulder on the lonely high-road,
chilled me again.
There stood Miss Fairlie, a white figure, alone
in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of her
head, in her complexion, in the shape of her face, the
living image, at that distance and under those circum-
stances, of the woman in white! The doubt which
had troubled my mind for hours and hours past, flashed
into conviction in an instant. That "something want-
ing" was my own recognition of the ominous likeness
between the fugitive from the asylum and my pupil at
Limmeridge House.
"You see it!" said Miss Halcombe. She dropped
the useless letter, and her eyes flashed as they met
mine. "You see it now, as my mother saw it eleven
years since!"
"I see it—more unwillingly than I can say. To
associate that forlorn, friendless, lost woman, even by
an accidental likeness only, with Miss Fairlie, seems
like casting a shadow on the future of the bright
creature who stands looking at us now. Let me
lose the impression again, as soon as possible. Call
.-


94 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
her in, out of the dreary moonlight—pray call
her in!"
"Mr. Hartright, you surprise me. Whatever
women may be, I thought that men, in the nineteenth
century, were above superstition."
"Pray call her in!"
"Hush, hush! She is coming of her own accord.
Say nothing in her presence. Let this discovery of
the likeness be kept a secret between you and me.
Come in, Laura; come in, and wake Mrs. Vesey with
the piano. Mr. Hartright is petitioning for some more
music, and he wants it, this time, of the lightest and
liveliest kind."
"V


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 95
IX.
So ended my eventful first day at Limmeridge House.
Miss Halcombe and I kept our secret. After the
discovery of the likeness no fresh light seemed destined
to break over the mystery of the woman in white. At
the first safe opportunity Miss Halcombe cautiously
led her half-sister to speak of their mother, of old
times, and of Anne Catherick. Miss Fairlie's recol-
lections of the little scholar at Limmeridge were,
however, only of the most vague and general kind.
She remembered the likeness between herself and her
mother's favourite pupil, as something which had been
supposed to exist in past times; but she did not refer
to the gift of the white dresses, or to the singular form
of words in which the child had artlessly expressed her
gratitude for them. She remembered that Anne had
remained at Limmeridge for a few months only, and
had then left it to go back to her home in Hampshire;
but she could not say whether the mother and daughter
had ever returned, or had ever been heard of after-
wards. No further search, on Miss Halcombe's part,
through the few letters of Mrs. Fairlie's writing which
-'


96 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
she had left unread, assisted in clearing up the uncer-
tainties still left to perplex us. We had identified the
unhappy woman whom I had met in the night-time,
with Anne Catherick—we had made some advance, at
least, towards connecting the probably defective con-
dition of the poor creature's intellect with the peculiarity
of her being dressed all in white, and with the con-
tinuance, in her maturer years, of her childish gratitude
towards Mrs. Fairlie—and there, so far as we knew at
that time, our discoveries had ended.
The days passed on, the weeks passed on; and the
track of the golden autumn wound its bright way
visibly through the green summer of the trees. Peaceful,
fast-flowing, happy time! my story glides by you now,
as swiftly as you once glided by me. Of all the trea-
sures of enjoyment that you poured so freely into my
heart, how much is left me that has purpose and value
enough to be written on this page? Nothing but the
saddest of all confessions that a man can make—the
confession of his own folly.
The secret which that confession discloses should be
told with little effort, for it has indirectly escaped me
already. The poor weak words which have failed to
describe Miss Fairlie, have succeeded in betraying the
sensations she awakened in me. It is so with us all.
Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and
dwarfs when they do us a service.
I loved her.
^


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 97
Ah! how well I know all the sadness and all the
mockery that is contained in those three words. I can
sigh over my mournful confession with the tenderest
woman who reads it and pities me. I can laugh at it
as bitterly as the hardest man who tosses it from him
in contempt. I loved her! Feel for me, or despise
me, I confess it with the same immovable resolution to
own the truth.
Was there no excuse for me? There was some
excuse to be found, surely, in the conditions under
which my term of hired service was passed at Limme-
ridge House.
My morning hours succeeded each other calmly in
the quiet and seclusion of my own room. I had just
work enough to do, in mounting my employer's draw-
ings, to keep my hands and eyes pleasurably employed,
while my mind was left free to enjoy the dangerous
luxury of its own unbridled thoughts. A perilous
solitude, for it lasted long enough to enervate, not
long enough to fortify me. A perilous solitude, for it
was followed by afternoons and evenings spent, day
after day and week after week, alone in the society of
two women, one of whom possessed all the accomplish-
ments of grace, wit, and high-breeding, the other all
the charms of beauty, gentleness, and simple truth,
that can purify and subdue the heart of man. Not a
day passed, in that dangerous intimacy of teacher and
pupil, in which my hand was not close to Miss Fairlie's;
my cheek, as we bent together over her sketch-book,
VOL. I. F


98 THE WOMAN IN "WHITE.
almost touching hers. The more attentively she
watched every movement of my brush, the more closely
I was breathing the perfume of her hair, and the warm
fragrance of her breath. It was part of my service, to
live in the very light of her eyes—at one time to be
bending over her, so close to her bosom as to tremble
at the thought of touching it; at another, to feel her
bending over me, bending so close to see what I was
about, that her voice sank low when she spoke to me,
and her ribbons brushed my cheek in the wind before
she could draw them back.
The evenings which followed the sketching excur-
sions of the afternoon, varied, rather than checked,
these innocent, these inevitable familiarities. My
natural fondness for the music, which she played with
such tender feeling, such delicate womanly taste, and
her natural enjoyment of giving me back, by the
practice of her art, the pleasure which I had offered to
her by the practice of mine, only wove another tie
which drew us closer and closer to one another. The
accidents of conversation; the simple habits which
regulated even such a little thing as the position of
our places at table; the play of Miss Halcombe's ever-
ready raillery, always directed against my anxiety, as
teacher, while it sparkled over her enthusiasm as pupil;
the harmless expression of poor Mrs. Vesey's drowsy
approval which connected Miss Fairlie and me as two
model young people who never disturbed her—every
one of these trifles, and many more, combined to fold


100 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
I know, now, that I should have questioned myself
from the first, I should have asked why any room in
the house was better than home to me when she entered
it, and barren as a desert when she went out again—
why I always noticed and remembered the little changes
in her dress that I had noticed and remembered in no
other woman's before—why I saw her, heard her, and
touched her (when we shook hands at night and morn-
ing) as I had never seen, heard, and touched any other
woman in my life? I should have looked into my own
heart, and found this new growth springing up there,
and plucked it out while it was young. Why was this
easiest, simplest work of self-culture always too much
for me? The explanation has been written already in
the three words that were many enough, and plain
enough, for my confession. I loved her.
The days passed, the weeks passed; it was approach-
ing the third month of my stay in Cumberland. The
delicious monotony of life in our calm seclusion, flowed
on with me like a smooth stream with a swimmer who
glides down the current. All memory of the past, all
thought of the future, all sense of the falseness and
hopelessness of my own position, lay hushed within me
into deceitful rest. Lulled by the Syren-song that my
own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and
ears closed to all sound of danger, I drifted nearer and
nearer to the fatal rocks. The warning that aroused
me at last, and startled me into sudden, self-accusing
consciousness of my own weakness, was the plainest,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 101
the truest, the kindest of all warnings, for it came
silently from her.
We had parted one night, as usual. No word had
fallen from my lips, at that time or at any time before
it, that could betray me, or startle her into sudden
knowledge of the truth. But, when we met again in
the morning, a change had come over her—a change
that told me all.
I shrank then—I shrink still—from invading the
innermost sanctuary of her heart, and laying it open
to others, as I have laid open my own. Let it be
enough to say that the time when she first surprised
my secret, was, I firmly believe, the time when she
first surprised her own, and the time, also, when she
changed towards me in the interval of one night. Her
nature, too truthful to deceive others, was too noble to
deceive itself. When the doubt that I had hushed
asleep, first laid its weary weight on her heart, the
true face owned all, and said, in its own frank simple
language—I am sorry for him; I am sorry for myself.
It said this, and more, which I could not then inter-
pret . I understood but too well the change in her
manner, to greater kindness and quicker readiness in
interpreting all my wishes, before others—to constraint
and sadness, and nervous anxiety to absorb herself in
the first occupation she could seize on, whenever we
happened to be left together alone. I understood why
the sweet sensitive lips smiled so rarely and so re-
strainedly now; and why the clear blue eyes looked at
'


102 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
me, sometimes with the pity of an angel, sometimes
with the innocent perplexity of a child. But the change
meant more than this. There was a coldness in her
hand, there was an unnatural immobility in her face,
there was in all her movements the mute expression of
constant fear and clinging self-reproach. The sensa-
tions that I could trace to herself and to me, the un-
acknowledged sensations that we were feeling in
common, were not these. There were certain elements
of the change in her that were still secretly drawing us
together, and others that were, as secretly, beginning
to drive us apart.
In my doubt and perplexity, in my vague suspicion
of something hidden which I was left to find by my
own unaided efforts, I examined Miss Halcombe's looks
and manner for enlightenment. Living in such intimacy
as ours, no serious alteration could take place in any
one of us which did not sympathetically affect the
others. The change in Miss Fairlie was reflected in
her half-sister. Although not a word escaped Miss
Halcombe which hinted at an altered state of feeling
towards myself, her penetrating eyes had contracted a
new habit of always watching me. Sometimes, the
look was like suppressed anger; sometimes, like sup-
pressed dread; sometimes, like neither—like nothing, in
short, which I could understand. A week elapsed, leav-
ing us all three still in this position of secret constraint
towards one another. My situation, aggravated by the
sense of my own miserable weakness and forgetfulness


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 103
of myself, now too late awakened in me, was becoming
intolerable. I felt that I must cast off the oppression
under which I was living, at once and for ever—yet
how to act for the best, or what to say first, was more
than I could tell.
From this position of helplessness and humiliation, I
was rescued by Miss Halcombe. Her lips told me the
bitter, the necessary, the unexpected truth ; her hearty
kindness sustained me under the shock of hearing it,
her sense and courage turned to its right use an even,^
which threatened the worst that could happen, to me
and to others, in Limmeridge House.


104 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
X.
It was on a Thursday in the week, and nearly at the
end of the third month of my sojourn in Cumberland.
In the morning, when I went down into the break-
fast-room, at the usual hour, Miss Halcombe, for the
first time since I had known her, was absent from her
customary place at the table.
Miss Fairlie was out on the lawn. She bowed to
me, but did not come in. Not a word had dropped
from my lips, or from hers that could unsettle either
of us—and yet the same unacknowledged sense of
embarrassment made us shrink alike from meeting one
another alone. She waited on the lawn; and I waited
in the breakfast-room, till Mrs. Vesey or Miss Hal-
combe came in. How quickly I should have joined
her: how readily we should have shaken hands, and
glided into our customary talk, only a fortnight ago ! •
In a few minutes, Miss Halcombe entered. She had
a preoccupied look, and she made her apologies for
being late, rather absently.
"I have been detained," she said," by a consultation
^


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 105
with Mr. Fairlie on a domestic matter which he wished
to speak to me about."
Miss Fairlie came in from the garden; and the
usual morning greeting passed between us. Her hand
struck colder to mine than ever. She did not look at
me; and she was very pale. Even Mrs. Vesey noticed
it, when she entered the room a moment after.
"I suppose it is the change in the wind," said the
old lady. "The winter is coming—ah, my love, the
winter is coming soon!"
In her heart and in mine it had come already!
Our morning meal—once so full of pleasant good-
humoured discussions of the plans for the day—was
short and silent. Miss Fairlie seemed to feel the
oppression of the long pauses in the conversation; and
looked appealingly to her sister to fill them up. Miss
Halcombe, after once or twice hesitating and checking
herself, in a most uncharacteristic manner, spoke at
last
.
"I have seen your uncle this morning, Laura," she
said. "He thinks the purple room is the one that
ought to be got ready; and he confirms what I told
you. Monday is the day—not Tuesday."
While these words were being spoken, Miss Fairlie
looked down at the table beneath her. Her fingers
moved nervously among the crumbs that were scattered
on the cloth. The paleness on her cheeks spread to
her lips, and the lips themselves trembled visibly. I
was not the only person present who noticed this. Miss
K 3


106 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
Halcombe saw it, too; and at once set us the example
of rising from table.
Mrs. Vesey and Miss Fairlie left the room together.
The kind sorrowful blue eyes looked at me, for a
moment, with the prescient sadness of a coming and a
long farewell. I felt the answering pang in my own
heart—the pang that told me I must lose her soon,
and love her the more unchangeably for the loss.
I turned towards the garden, when the door had
closed on her. Miss Halcombe was standing with her
hat in her hand, and her shawl over her arm, by the
large window that led out to the lawn, and was looking
at me attentively.
"Have you any leisure time to spare," she asked,
"before you begin to work in your own room?"
"Certainly, Miss Halcombe. I have always time
at your service."
"I want to say a word to you in private, Mr. Hart-
right. Get your hat, and come out into the garden.
We are not likely to be disturbed there at this hour in
the morning."
As we stepped out on to the lawn, one of the under-
gardeners—a mere lad—passed us on his way to the
house, with a letter in his hand. Miss Halcombe
stopped him.
"Is that letter for me?" she asked.
"Nay, miss; it's just said to be for Miss Fairlie,"
answered the lad, holding out the letter as he
spake.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 107
Miss Halcombe took it from him, and looked at the
address.
"A strange handwriting," she said to herself.
"Who can Laura's correspondent be? Where did
you get this?" she continued, addressing the gardener.
"Well, miss," said the lad, "I just got it from a
woman."
"What woman?"
"A woman well stricken in age."
"Oh, an old woman. Any one you knew?"
"I canna' tak' it on mysel' to say that she was
other than a stranger to me."
"Which way did she go?"
"That gate," said the under-gardener, turning
with great deliberation towards the south, and embrac-
ing the whole of that part of England with one com-
prehensive sweep of his arm.
"Curious," said Miss Halcombe; "I suppose it
must be a begging-letter. There," she added, hand-
ing the letter back to the lad, "take it to the house,
and give it to one of the servants. And now, Mr.
Hartright, if you have no objection, let us walk this
way."
She led me across the" lawn, along the same path by
which I had followed heron the day after my arrival at
Limmeridge. At the little summer-house in which
Laura Fairlie and I had first seen each other, she
stopped, and broke the silence which she had steadily
maintained while we were walking together.
'


108 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"What I have to say to you, I can say here."
With those words, she entered the summer-house,
took one of the chairs at the little round table inside,
and signed to me to take the other. I suspected what
was coming when she spoke to me in the breakfast-
room; I felt certain of it now.
"Mr. Hartright," she said, "I am going to begin
by making a frank avowal to you. I am going to say
—without phrase-making, which I detest; or paying
compliments, which I heartily despise—that I have
come, in the course of your residence with us, to feel
a strong friendly regard for you. I was predisposed in
your favour when you first told me of your conduct to-
wards that unhappy woman whom you met under such
remarkable circumstances. Your management of the
affair might not have been prudent; but it showed the
self-control, the delicacy, and the compassion of a
man who was naturally a gentleman. It made me
expect good things from you; and you have not dis-
appointed my expectations."
She paused—but held up her hand at the same time,
as a sign that she awaited no answer from me before
she proceeded. When I entered the summer-house,
no thought was in me of the woman in white. But,
now, Miss HalcomDe's own words had put the memory
of my adventure back in my mind. It remained there
throughout the interview—remained, and not without
a result.
"As your friend," she proceeded, "I am going to


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 109
tell you, at once, in my own plain, blunt, downright
language, that I have discovered your secret—without
help, or hint, mind, from any one else. Mr. Hartright,
you have thoughtlessly allowed yourself to form an
. attachment—a serious and devoted attachment, I am
afraid—to my sister, Laura. I don't put you to the
pain of confessing it, in so many words, because I see
and know that you are too honest to deny it. I don't
even blame you—I pity you for opening your heart to
a hopeless affection. You have not attempted to take
any underhand advantage—you have not spoken to my
sister in secret. You are guilty of weakness and want
of attention to your own best interests, but of nothing
worse. If you had acted, in any single respect, less
delicately and less modestly, I should have told you to
leave the house, without an instant's notice, or an
instant's consultation of anybody. As it is, I blame
the misfortune of your years and your position—I don't
blame you. Shake hands—I have given you pain;
I am going to give you more; but there is no help for
it—shake hands with your friend, Marian Halcombe,
first."
The sudden kindness—the warm, high-minded,
fearless sympathy which met me on such mercifully-
equal terms, which appealed with such delicate and
generous abruptness straight to my heart, my honour,
and my courage, overcame me in an instant. I tried
to look at her, when she took my hand, but my eyes
were dim. I tried to thank her, but my voice failed me.


110 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Listen to me," she said, considerately avoiding all
notice of my loss of self-control. "Listen to me, and
let us get it over at once. It is a real true relief to
me that I am not obliged, in what I have now to say,
to enter into the question—the hard and cruel question
as I think it—of social inequalities. Circumstances
which will try you to the quick, spare me the un-
gracious necessity of paining a man who has lived in
friendly intimacy under the same roof with myself by
any humiliating reference to matters of rank and sta-
tion. You must leave Limmeridge House, Mr.
Hartright, before more harm is done. It is my duty
to say that to you; and it would be equally my duty
to say it, under precisely the same serious necessity, if
you were the representative of the oldest and wealthiest
family in England. You must leave us, not because
you are a teacher of drawing"
She waited a moment; turned her face full on me;
and, reaching across the table, laid her hand firmly on
my arm.
"Not because you are a teacher of drawing," she
repeated, "but because Laura Fairlie is engaged to
be married."
The last word went like a bullet to my heart. My
arm lost all sensation of the hand that grasped it. I
never moved and never spoke. The sharp autumn
breeze that scattered the dead leaves at our feet, came
as cold to me, on a sudden, as if my own mad hopes
were dead leaves, too, whirled away by the wind like
1


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. Ill
the rest. Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she
was equally far from me. Would other men have
remembered that in my place? Not if they had loved
her as I did.
The pang passed; and nothing but the dull numb-
ing pain of it remained. I felt Miss Halcombe's hand
again, tightening its hold on my arm—I raised my
head, and looked at her. Her large black eyes were
rooted on me, watching the white change on my face,
which I felt, and which she saw.
"Crush it!" she said. "Here, where you first saw
her, crush it! Don't shrink under it like a woman.
Tear it out; trample it under foot like a man!"
The suppressed vehemence with which she spoke;
the strength which her will—concentrated in the look
she fixed on me, and in the hold on my arm that she
had not yet relinquished—communicated to mine,
steadied me. We both waited for a minute, in silence.
At the end of that time, I had justified her generous
faith in my manhood; I had, outwardly at least, re-
covered my self-control.
"Are you yourself again?"
"Enough myself, Miss Halcombe, to ask your
pardon and hers. Enough myself, to be guided by
your advice, and to prove my gratitude in that way, if
I can prove it in no other."
"You have proved it already," she answered, "by
those words. Mr. Hartright, concealment is at an end
between us. I cannot affect to hide from you, what my


112 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
sister has unconsciously shown to me. You must
leave us for her sake, as well as for your own. Your
presence here, your necessary intimacy with us, harm-
less as it has been, God knows, in all other respects,
has unsteadied her and made her wretched. I, who
love her better than my own life—I, who have learnt
to believe in that pure, noble, innocent nature as I
believe in my religion—know but too well the secret
misery of self-reproach that she has been suffering,
since the first shadow of a feeling disloyal to her mar-
riage engagement entered her heart in spite of her. I
don't say—it would be useless to attempt to say it, after
what has happened—that her engagement has ever had
a strong hold on her affections. It is an engagement
of honour, not of love—her father sanctioned it on his
death-bed, two years since—she herself neither wel-
comed it, nor shrank from it—she was content to make
it. Till you came here, she was in the position of
hundreds of other women, who marry men without
being greatly attracted to them or greatly repelled by
them, and who learn to love them (when they don't
learn to hate!) after marriage, instead of before. I
hope more earnestly than words can say—and you
should have the self-sacrificing courage to hope too—
that the new thoughts and feelings which have dis-
turbed the old calmness and the old content, have not
taken root too deeply to be ever removed. Your
absence (if I had less belief in your honour, and your
courage, and your sense, I should not trust to them as (
•■


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 113
I am trusting now)—your absence will help my efforts;
and time will help us all three. It is something to
know that my first confidence in you was not all mis-
placed. It is something to know that you will not be
less honest, less manly, less considerate towards the
pupil whose relation to yourself you have had the mis-
fortune to forget, than towards the stranger and the
outcast whose appeal to you was not made in
vain."
Again the chance reference to the woman in white!
Was there no possibility of speaking of Miss Fairlie
and of me without raising the memory of Anne Cathe-
rick, and setting her between us like a fatality that it
was hopeless to avoid?
"Tell me what apology I can make to Mr. Fairlie
for breaking my engagement," I said. "Tell me
when to go after that apology is accepted, I promise
implicit obedience to you and to your advice."
"Time is, every way, of importance," she answered.
"You heard me refer this morning to Monday next,
and to the necessity of setting the purple room in order.
The visitor whom we expect on Monday"
I could not wait for her to be more explicit. Know-
ing what I knew now, the memory of Miss Fairlie's
look and manner at the breakfast-table told me that
the expected visitor at Limmeridge House was her
future husband. I tried to force it back; but some-
thing rose within me at that moment stronger than my
own will; and I interrupted Miss Halcombe.


114 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Let me go to-day," I said, bitterly. "The sooner
the better."
"No; not to-day," she replied. "The only reason
you can assign to Mr. Fairlie for your departure,
before the end of your engagement, must be that an
unforeseen necessity compels you to ask his permission
to return at once to London. You must wait till to-
morrow to tell him that, at the time when the post
comes in, because he will then understand the sudden
change in your plans, by associating it with the arrival
of a letter from London. It is miserable and sicken-
ing to descend to deceit, even of the most harmless
kind—but I know Mr. Fairlie, and if you once excite
his suspicions that you are trifling with him, he will
refuse to release you. Speak to him on Friday morn-
ing; occupy yourself afterwards (for the sake of your
own interests with your employer), in leaving your
unfinished work in as little confusion as possible; and
quit this place on Saturday. It will be time enough,
then, Mr. Hartright, for you, and for all of us."
Before I could assure her that she might depend on
my acting in the strictest accordance with her wishes,
we were both startled by advancing footsteps in the
shrubbery. Some one was coming from the house to
seek for us! I felt the blood rush into my cheeks,
and then leave them again. Could the third person
who was fast approaching us, at such a time and under
such circumstances, be Miss Fairlie?
It was a relief—so sadly, so hopelessly was my


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 115
position towards her changed already—it was abso-
lutely a relief to me, when the person who had
disturbed us appeared at the entrance of the sum-
mer-house, and proved to be only Miss Fairlie's
maid.
"Could I speak to you for a moment, miss?" said
the girl, in rather a flurried, unsettled manner.
Miss Halcombe descended the steps into the shrub-
bery, and walked aside a few paces with the maid.
Left by myself, my mind reverted, with a sense of
forlorn wretchedness which it is not in any words that
I can find to describe, to my approaching return to the
solitude and the despair of my lonely London home.
Thoughts of my kind old mother, and of my sister,
who had rejoiced with her so innocently over my pros-
pects in Cumberland—thoughts whose long banish-
ment from my heart it was now my shame and my
reproach to realise for the first time—came back to
me with the loving mournfulness of old, neglected
friends. My mother and my sister, what would they
feel when I returned to them from my broken engage-
ment, with the confession of my miserable secret—they
who had parted from me so hopefully on that last
happy night in the Hampstead cottage!
Anne Catherick again! Even the memory of the
farewell evening with my mother and my sister could
not return to me now, unconnected with that other
memory of the moonlight walk back to London.
What did it mean? Were that woman and I to meet
-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 117
might not easily offer; so I risked asking it on our
way back to the house.
"Now that you are kind enough to tell me we have
understood each other, Miss Halcombe," I said; "now
that you are sure of my gratitude for your forbearance
and my obedience to your wishes, may I venture to
ask who"—(I hesitated; I had forced myself to think
of him, but it was harder still to speak of him, as her
promised husband)—"who the gentlemen engaged to
Miss Fairlie, is?"
Her mind was evidently occupied with the message
she had received from her sister. She answered, in a
hasty, absent way:
"A gentleman of large property, in Hampshire."
Hampshire! Anne Catherick's native place. Again,
and yet again, the woman in white. There was a
fatality in it.
"And his name?" I said, as quietly and indiffer-
ently as I could.
"SirPercivalGlyde."
Sir—Sir Percival! Anne Catherick's question—
that suspicious question about the men of the rank of
Baronet whom I might happen to know—had hardly
been dismissed from my mind by Miss Halcombe's
return to me in the summer-house, before it was
recalled again by her own answer. I stopped suddenly,
and looked at her.
"Sir Percival Glyde," she repeated, imagining
that I had not heard her former reply.


118 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Knight, or Baronet?" I asked, with an agitation
that I could hide no longer.
She paused for a moment, and then answered,
rather coldly:
"Baronet, of course."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 119
XI.
Not a word more was said, on either side, as we
walked back to the house. Miss Halcombe hastened
immediately to her sister's room; and I withdrew to my
studio to set in order all of Mr. Fairlie's drawings that
I had not yet mounted and restored before I resigned
them to the care of other hands. Thoughts that I had
hitherto restrained, thoughts that made my position
harder than ever to endure, crowded on me now that I
was alone.
She was engaged to be married; and her future
husband was Sir Percival Glyde. A man of the
rank of baronet, and the owner of property in Hamp-
shire.
There were hundreds of baronets in England, and
dozens of landowners in Hampshire. Judging by the
ordinary rules of evidence, I had not the shadow of a
reason, thus far, for connecting Sir Percival Glyde with
the suspicious words of inquiry that had been spoken to
me by the woman in white. And yet, I did connect him
with them. Was it because he had now become asso-
ciated in my mind with Miss Fairlie ; Miss Fairlie being
'


120 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
in her turn, associated with Anne Catherick, since the
night when I had discovered the ominous likeness between
them? Had the events of the morning so unnerved me
already that I was at the mercy of any delusion which
common chances and common coincidences might sug-
gest to my imagination? Impossible to say. I could
only feel that what had passed between Miss Halcombe
and myself, on our way from the summer-house, had
affected me very strangely. The foreboding of some un-
discoverable danger lying hid from us all in the dark-
ness of the future, was strong on me. The doubt
whether I was not linked already to a chain of events
which even my approaching departure from Cumber-
land would be powerless to snap asunder—the doubt
whether we any of us saw the end as the end would
really be—gathered more and more darkly over my
mind. Poignant as it was, the sense of suffering
caused by the miserable end of my brief, presumptuous
love, seemed to be blunted and deadened by the still
stronger sense of something obscurely impending,
something invisibly threatening, that Time was hold-
ing over our heads.
I had been engaged with the drawings little more
than half an hour, when there was a knock at the
door. It opened, on my answering; and, to my sur-
prise, Miss Halcombe entered the room.
Her manner was angry and agitated. She caught
up a chair for herself, before I could give her one;
and sat down in it, close at my side.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 121
"Mr. Hartright," she said, "I had hoped that all
painful subjects of conversation were exhausted be-
tween us, for to-day at least. But it is not to be
so. There is some underhand villany at work to
frighten my sister about her approaching marriage.
You saw me send the gardener on to the house, with
a letter addressed, in a strange handwriting, to Miss
Fairlie?"
"Certainly."
"That letter is an anonymous letter—a vile attempt
to injure Sir Percival Glyde in my sister's estimation.
It has so agitated and alarmed her that I have had the
greatest possible difficulty in composing her spirits
sufficiently to allow me to leave her room and come
here. I know this is a family matter on which I ought
not to consult you, and in which you can feel no con-
cern or interest"
"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe. I feel the
strongest possible concern and interest in anything
that affects Miss Fairlie's happiness or yours."
"I am glad to hear you say so. You are the only
person in the house, or out of it, who can advise me.
Mr. Fairlie, in his state of health and with his horror
of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not to be
thought of. The clergyman is a good, weak man, who
knows nothing out of the routi rof his duties; and
our neighbours are just the sort of comfortable, jog-
trot acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times
of trouble and danger. What I want to know is this:
VOL. I. G


122 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
ought I, at once, to take such steps as I can to dis-
cover the writer of the letter? or ought I to wait, and
apply to Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow? It is
a question—perhaps a very important one—of gaining
or losing a day. Tell me what you think, Mr. Hart-
right. If necessity had not already obliged me to
take you into my confidence under very delicate cir-
cumstances, even my helpless situation would, perhaps,
be no excuse for me. But, as things are, I cannot
surely be wrong, after all that has passed between us,
in forgetting that you are a friend of only three
months' standing."
She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, with-
out any preliminary form of address, as follows:
"Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your
own sake, that you do. See what Scripture says
about dreams and their fulfilment (Genesis xl. 8., xli.
25; Daniel iv. 18-25); and take the warning I send
you before it is too late.
"Last night, I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie-
I dreamed that I was standing inside the communion
rails of a church: I on one side of the altar-table, and
the clergyman, with his surplice and his prayer-book,
on the other.
"After a time, there walked towards us, down the
aisle of the church, a man and a woman, coming to be
married. You were the woman. You looked so
pretty and innocent in your beautiful white silk dress,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 123
and your long white lace veil, that my heart felt for
you and the tears came into my eyes.
"They were tears of pity, young lady, that heaven
blesses; and, instead of falling from my eyes like the
every-day tears that we all of us shed, they turned
into two rays of light which slanted nearer and nearer
to the man standing at the altar with you, till they
touched his breast. The two rays sprang in arches
like two rainbows, between me and him. I looked
along them; and I saw down into his inmost heart.
"The outside of the man you were marrying was
fair enough to see. He was neither tall, nor short—
he was a little below the middle size. A light, active,
high-spirited man—about five-and-forty years old, to
look at. He had a pale face, and was bald over the
forehead, but had dark hair on the rest of his head.
His beard was shaven on his chin, but was let to grow,
of a fine rich brown, on his cheeks and his upper lip.
His eyes were brown too, and very bright; his nose
straight and handsome and delicate enough to have
done for a woman's. His hands the same. He was
troubled from time to time with a dry hacking cough;
and when he put up his white right hand to his mouth,
he showed the red scar of an old wound across the
back of it. Have I dreamt of the right man? You
know best, Miss Fairlie; and you can say if I was
deceived or not. Read, next, what I saw beneath
the outside—I entreat you, read, and profit.
"I looked along the two rays of light; and I saw
G 2


124 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
down into his inmost heart. It was black as night; and
on it were written, in the red flaming letters which are
the handwriting of the fallen angel: 'Without pity
and without remorse. He has strewn with misery the
paths of others, and he will live to strew with misery
the path of this woman by his side.' I read that; and
then the rays of light shifted and pointed over his
shoulder; and there, behind him, stood a fiend, laugh-
ing. And the rays of light shifted once more, and
pointed over your shoulder; and there, behind you,
stood an angel weeping. And the rays of light shifted
for the third time, and pointed straight between you
and that man. They widened and widened, thrusting
you both asunder, one from the other. And the
clergyman looked for the marriage-service in vain:
it was gone out of the book, and he shut up the leaves,
and put it from him in despair. And I woke with my
eyes full of tears and my heart beating—for I believe
in dreams.
"Believe, too, Miss Fairlie—I beg of you, for your
own sake, believe as I do. Joseph and Daniel, and
others in Scripture, believed in dreams. Inquire into
the past life of that man with the scar on his hand,
before you say the words that make you his miserable
wife. I don't give you this warning on my account,
but on yours. I have an interest in your well-being
that will live as long as I draw breath. Your mother's
daughter has a tender place in my heart—for your
mother was my first, my best, my only friend."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 12$
There, the extraordinary letter ended, without
signature of any sort.
The handwriting afforded no prospect of a clue. It
was traced on ruled lines, in the cramped, conventional,
copybook character, technically termed "small hand."
It was feeble and faint, and defaced by blots, but had
otherwise nothing to distinguish it.
"That is not an illiterate letter," said Miss Hal-
combe, "and, at the same time, it is surely too inco-
herent to be the letter of an educated person in the
higher ranks of life. The reference to the bridal
dress and veil, and other little expressions, seem to
point to it as the production of some woman. What
do you think, Mr. Hartright?"
"I think so too. It seems to me to be not only the
letter of a woman, but of a woman whose mind must
be"
"Deranged?" suggested Miss Halcombe. "It
struck me in that light, too."
I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes
rested on the last sentence of the letter: "Your
mother's daughter has a tender place in my heart—for
your mother was my first, my best, my only friend."
Those words and the doubt which had just escaped
me as to the sanity of the writer of the letter, acting
together on my mind, suggested an idea, which I was
literally afraid to express openly, or even to encourage
secretly. I began to doubt whether my own faculties
were not in danger of losing their balance. It seemed
^


126 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
almost like a monomania to be tracing back everything
strange that happened, everything unexpected that was
said, always to the same hidden source and the same
sinister influence. I resolved, this time, in defence of
my own courage and my own sense, to come to no
decision that plain fact did not warrant, and to turn
my back resolutely on everything that tempted me in
the shape of surmise.
"If we have any chance of tracing the person who
has written this," I said, returning the letter to
Miss Halcombe, "there can be no harm in seizing our
opportunity the moment it offers. I think we ought
to speak to the gardener again about the elderly
woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue
our inquiries in the village. But first let me ask a
question. You mentioned just now the alternative
of consulting Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow.
Is there no possibility of communicating with him
earlier? Why not to-day?"
"I can only explain," replied Miss Halcombe, " by
entering into certain particulars, connected with my
sister's marriage engagement, which I did not think it
necessary or desirable to mention to you this morning.
One of Sir Percival Glyde's objects in coming here, on
Monday, is to fix the period of his marriage, which has
hitherto been left quite unsettled. He is anxious that
the event should take place before the end of the year."
"Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?" I asked,
eagerly.
-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 127
"She has no suspicion of it; and, after what has
happened, I shall not take the responsibility upon
myself of enlightening her. Sir Percival has only
mentioned his views to Mr. Fairlie, who has told me
himself that he is ready and anxious, as Laura's
guardian, to forward them. He has written to
London, to the family solicitor, Mr. Gilmore. Mr.
Gilmore happens to be away in Glasgow on business;
and he has replied by proposing to stop at Limmeridge
House, on his way back to town. He will arrive
to-morrow, and will stay with us a few days, so as to
allow Sir Percival time to plead his own cause. If he
succeeds, Mr. Gilmore will then return to London,
taking with him his instructions for my sister's
marriage-settlement. You understand now, Mr.
Hartright, why I speak of waiting to take legal
advice until to-morrow? Mr. Gilmore is the old and
tried friend of two generations of Fairlies; and we can
trust him, as we could trust no one else."
. The marriage-settlement 1 The mere hearing of
those two words stung me with a jealous despair that
was poison to my higher and better instincts. I began
to think—it is hard to confess this, but I must suppress
nothing from beginning to end of the terrible story
that I now stand committed to reveal—I began to
think, with a hateful eagerness of hope, of the vague
charges against Sir Percival Glyde which the anony-
mous letter contained. What if those wild accusations
rested on a foundation of truth? What if their truth
-


128 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
could be proved before the fatal words of consent were
spoken, and the marriage-settlement was drawn? I
have tried to think, since, that the feeling which then
animated me began and ended in pure devotion to
Miss Fairlie's interests. But I have never succeeded
in deceiving myself into believing it; and I must not
now attempt to deceive others. The feeling began
and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless hatred of
the man who was to marry her.
"If we are to find out anything," I said, speaking
under the new influence which was now directing me,
"we had better not let another minute slip by us
unemployed. I can only suggest, once more, the pro-
priety of questioning the gardener a second time, and
of inquiring in the village immediately afterwards."
"I think I may be of help to you in both cases,"
said Miss Halcombe, rising. "Let us go, Mr. Hart-
right, at once, and do the best we can together."
I had the door in my hand to open it for her—but I
stopped, on a sudden, to ask an important question
before we set forth.
"One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter,"
I said, "contains some sentences of minute personal
description. Sir Percival Glyde's name is not men-
tioned, I know—but does that description at all re-
semble him?"
"Accurately; even in stating his age to be forty-
five—"
Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one I Men


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 129
of his age married wives of her age every day: and
experience had shown those marriages to be often the
happiest ones. I knew that—and yet even the mention
of his age, when I contrasted it with hers, added to
my blind hatred and distrust of him.
"Accurately," Miss Halcombe continued, "even to
the scar on his right hand, which is the scar of a wound
that he received years since when he was travel-
ling in Italy. There can be no doubt that every
peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly
well known to the writer of the letter."
"Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned,
if I remember right?"
"Yes, and mentioned correctly. He treats it
lightly himself, though it sometimes makes his friends
anxious about him."
"I suppose no whispers have ever been heard against
his character?"
"Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough
to let that infamous letter influence you?"
I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that
it had influenced me.
"I hope not," I answered, confusedly. "Perhaps I
had no right to ask the question."
"I am not sorry you asked it," she said, "for it
enables me to do justice to Sir Percival's reputation.
Not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever reached me,
or my family, against him. He has fought successfully
two contested elections; and has come out of the
a 3


130 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
ordeal unscathed. A man who can do that, in England,
is a man whose character is established."
I opened the door for her in silence, and followed
her out. She had not convinced me. If the recording
angel had come down from heaven to confirm her, and
had opened his book to my mortal eyes, the recording
angel would not have convinced me.
We found the gardener at work as usual. No
amount of questioning could extract a single answer
of any importance from the lad's impenetrable stupidity.
The woman who had given him the letter was an
elderly woman; she had not spoken a word to him;
and she had gone away towards the south in a great
hurry. That was all the gardener could tell us.
The village lay southward of the house. So to the
village we went next.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 131
XII.
Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued
in all directions, and among all sorts and conditions of
people. But nothing came of them. Three of the
villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the
woman; but as they were quite unable to describe her,
and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact direc-
tion in which she was proceeding when they last saw
her, these three bright exceptions to the general rule
of total ignorance afforded no more real assistance to
us than the mass of their unhelpful and unobservant
neighbours.
The course of our useless investigations brought us,
in time, to the end of the village, at which the schools
established by Mrs. Fairlie were situated. As we
passed the side of the building appropriated to the use
of the boys, I suggested the propriety of making a last
inquiry of the schoolmaster, whom we might presume
to be, in virtue of his office, the most intelligent man
in the place.
"I am afraid the schoolmaster must have been
occupied with his scholars," said Miss Halcombe,


132 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"just at the time when the woman passed through the
village, and returned again. However we can but
try."
We entered the playground enclosure, and walked
by the schoolroom window, to get round to the door,
which was situated at the back of the building.
I stopped for a moment at the window and
looked in.
The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with
his back to me, apparently haranguing the pupils, who
were all gathered together in front of him, with one
exception. The one exception was a sturdy white-
headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool
in a corner—a forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his own
desert island of solitary penal disgrace.
The door, when we got round to it, was ajar; and
the schoolmaster's voice reached us plainly, as we both
stopped for a minute under the porch.
"Now, boys," said the voice, "mind what I tell
you. If I hear another word spoken about ghosts in
this school, it will be the worst for all of you. There
are no such things as ghosts; and, therefore, any boy
who believes in ghosts believes in what can't possibly
be; and a boy who belongs to Limmeridge School,
and believes in what can't possibly be, sets up his back
against reason and discipline, and must be punished
accordingly. You all see Jacob Postletbwaite stand-
ing up on the stool there in disgrace. He has been
punished, not because he said he saw a ghost last


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 133
night, but because he is too impudent and too obstinate
to listen to reason; and because he persists in saying
he saw the ghost after I have told him that no such
thing can possibly be. If nothing else will do, I mean
to cane the ghost out of Jacob Postlethwaite; and if
the thing spreads among any of the rest of you, I mean
to go a step farther, and cane the ghost out of the
whole school."
"We seem to have chosen an awkward moment for
our visit," said Miss Halcombe, pushing open the door
at the end of the schoolmaster's address, and leading
the way in.
Our appearance produced a strong sensation among
the boys. They appeared to think that we had arrived
for the express purpose of seeing Jacob Postlethwaite
caned.
"Go home all of you to dinner," said the school-
master, "except Jacob. Jacob must stifp where he is;
and the ghost may bring him his dinner, if the ghost
pleases."
Jacob's fortitude deserted him at the double dis-
appearance of his schoolfellows and his prospect of
dinner. He took his hands out of his pockets, looked
hard at his knuckles, raised them with great delibera-
tion to his eyes, and, when they got there, ground them
round and round slowly, accompanying the action by
short spasms of sniffing, which followed each other at
regular intervals—the nasal minute guns of juvenile
distress.


134 |THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"We came here to ask you a question, Mr.
Dempster," said Miss Halcombe, addressing the
schoolmaster; "and we little expected to find you
occupied in exorcising a ghost. What does it all
mean? What has really happened?"
"That wicked boy has been frightening the whole
school, Miss Halcombe, by declaring that he saw a
ghost yesterday evening," answered the master. "And
he still persists in his absurd story, in spite of all that
I can say to him."
"Most extraordinary," said Miss Halcombe. "I
should not have thought it possible that any of the
boys had imagination enough to see a ghost. This is
a new accession indeed to the hard labour of forming
the youthful mind at Limmeridge—and I heartily wish
you well through it, Mr. Dempster. In the meantime,
let me explain why you see me here, and what it is I
want."
She then put the same question to the schoolmaster,
which we had asked already of almost every one else
in the village. It was met by the same discouraging
answer. Mr. Dempster had not set eyes on the
stranger of whom we were in search.
"We may as well return to the house, Mr. Hart-
right," said Miss Halcombe; "the information we
want is evidently not to be found."
She had bowed to Mr. Dempster, and was about to
leave the schoolroom, when the forlorn position of
Jacob Postlethwaite, piteously sniffing on the stool of


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 135
penitence, attracted her attention as she passed him,
and made her stop good-humouredly to speak a word
to the little prisoner before she opened the door.
"You foolish boy," she said, "why don't you beg
Mr. Dempster's pardon, and hold your tongue about
the ghost?"
"Eh!—but I saw t' ghaist," persisted Jacob Postle-
thwaite, with a stare of terror and a burst of tears.
"Stuff and nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind.
Ghost indeed! What ghost"
"I beg you pardon, Miss Halcombe," interposed
the schoolmaster, a little uneasily—" but I think you
had better not question the boy. The obstinate folly
of his story is beyond all belief; and you might lead
him into ignorantly"
"Ignorantly, what?" inquired Miss Halcombe,
sharply.
"Ignorantly shocking your feelings," said Mr.
Dempster, looking very much discomposed.
"Upon my word, Mr. Dempster, you pay my feel-
ings a great compliment in thinking them weak enough
to be shocked by such an urchin as that!" She turned
with an air of satirical defiance to little Jacob, and
began to question him directly. "Come !" she said;
"I mean to know all about this. You naughty boy,
when did you see the ghost!"
"Yester'een, at the gloaming," replied Jacob.
"Oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight?
And what was it like?"


136 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Arl in white—as a ghaist should be," answered
the ghost-seer, with a confidence beyond his years.
"And where was it?"
"Away yander, in t' kirkyard—where a ghaist ought
to be."
"As a 'ghaist' should be—where a ' ghaist' ought
to be—why, you little fool, you talk as if the manners
and customs of ghosts had been familiar to you from
your infancy! You have got your story at your
fingers' end, at any rate. I suppose I shall hear next
that you can actually tell me whose ghost it
"Eh! but I just can," replied Jacob, nodding his
head with an air of gloomy triumph.
Mr. Dempster had already tried several times to
speak, while Miss Halcombe was examining his pupil;
and he now interposed resolutely enough to make him-
self heard.
"Excuse me, Miss Halcombe," he said, "if I
venture to say that you are only encouraging the boy
by asking him these questions."
"I will merely ask one more, Mr. Dempster, and
then I shall be quite satisfied. Well," she continued,
turning to the boy, "and whose ghost was it?"
"T" ghaist of Mistress Fairlie," answered Jacob in
a whisper.
The effect which this extraordinary reply produced
on Miss Halcombe, fully justified the anxiety which
the schoolmaster had shown to prevent her from hear-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 137
ing it. Her face crimsoned with indignation—she
turned upon little Jacob with an angry suddenness
which terrified him into a fresh burst of tears—opened
her lips to speak to him—then controlled herself—and
addressed the master instead of the boy.
"It is useless," she said, " to hold such a child as
that responsible for what he says. I have little doubt
that the idea has been put into his head by others. If
there are people in this village, Mr. Dempster, who
have forgotten the respect and gratitude due from
every soul in it to my mother's memory, I will find
them out; and, if I have any influence with Mr.
Fairlie, they shall suffer for it."
"I hope—indeed, I am sure, Miss Halcombe—that
you are mistaken," said the schoolmaster. "The
matter begins and ends with the boy's own perversity
and folly. He saw, or thought he saw, a woman in
white, yesterday evening, as he was passing the church-
yard; and the figure, real or fancied, was standing by
the marble cross, which he and every one else in Lim-
meridge knows to be the monument over Mrs. Fairlie's
grave. These two circumstances are surely sufficient
to have suggested to the boy himself the answer which
has so naturally shocked you?"
Although Miss Halcombe did not seem to be con-
vinced, she evidently felt that the schoolmaster's state-
ment of the case was too sensible to be openly com-
bated. She merely replied by thanking him for his
attention, and by promising to see him again when her


138 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
doubts were satisfied. This said, she bowed, and led
the way out of the schoolroom.
Throughout the whole of this strange scene, I had
stood apart, listening attentively, and drawing my own
conclusions. As soon as we were alone again, Miss
Halcombe asked me if I had formed any opinion on
what I had heard.
"A very strong opinion," I answered; "the. boy's
story, as I believe, has a foundation in fact. I confess
I am anxious to see the monument over Mrs. Fairlie's
grave, and to examine the ground about it."
"You shall see the grave."
She paused after making that reply, and reflected
a little as we walked on. "What has happened in the
schoolroom," she resumed, "has so completely dis-
tracted my attention from the subject of the letter, that
I feel a little bewildered when I try to return to it.
Must we give up all idea of making any further in-
quiries, and wait to place the thing in Mr. Gilmore's
hands, to-morrow?"
"By no means, Miss Halcombe. What has hap-
pened in the schoolroom encourages me to persevere
in the investigation."
"Why does it encourage you?"
"Because it strengthens a suspicion I felt, when you
gave me the letter to read."
"I suppose you had your reasons, Mr. Hartright,
for concealing that suspicion from me till this mo-
ment?"


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 139
"I was afraid to encourage it in myself. I thought
it was utterly preposterous—I distrusted it as the
result of some perversity in my own imagination. But
I can do so no longer. Not only the boy's own answers
to your questions, but even a chance expression that
dropped from the schoolmaster's lips in explaining his
story, have forced the idea back into my mind. Events
may yetprove that idea to be a delusion, Miss Hal-
combe; but the belief is strong in me, at this moment,
that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the
writer of the anonymous letter, are one and the same
person."
She stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in
the face.
"What person?"
"The schoolmaster unconsciously told you. When
he spoke of the figure that the boy saw in the church-
yard, he called it ' a woman in white.'"
"Not Anne Catherick!"
"Yes, Anne Catherick."
She put her hand through my arm, and leaned on it
heavily.
"I don't know why," she said, in low tones, "but
there is something in this suspicion of yours that seems
to startle and unnerve me. I feel- "She stopped,
and tried to laugh it off. "Mr. Hartright," she went
on, "I will show you the grave, and then go back at
once to the house. I had better not leave Laura too
long alone. I had better go back, and sit with her."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 141
clouded, here and there, by weather-stains; and rather
more than one half of the square block beneath it, on
the side which bore the inscription, was in the same
condition. The other half, however, attracted my
attention at once by its singular freedom from stain or
impurity of any kind. I looked closer, and saw that it
had been cleaned—recently cleaned, in a downward di-
rection from top to bottom. The boundary line between
the part that had been cleaned and the part that had
not, was traceable wherever the inscription left a blank
space of marble—sharply traceable as a line that had
been produced by artificial means. Who had begun the
cleansing of the marble, and who had left it unfinished?
I looked about me, wondering how the question was
to be solved. No sign of a habitation could be dis-
cerned from the point at which I was standing: the
burial-ground was left in the lonely possession of the
dead. I returned to the church, and walked round it
till I came to the back of the building; then crossed
the boundary wall beyond, by another of the stone
stiles; and found myself at the head of a path leading
down into a deserted stone quarry. Against one side
of the quarry a little two room cottage was built; and
just outside the door an old woman was engaged in
washing.
I walked up to her, and entered into conversation
about the church and burial-ground. She was ready
enough to talk; and almost the first words she said in-
formed me that her husband filled the two offices of


142 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
clerk and sexton. I said a few words next in praise of
Mrs. Fairlie's monument. The old woman shook her
head, and told me I had not seen it at its best. It was
her husband's business to look after it; but he had
been so ailing and weak, for months and months past,
that he had hardly been able to crawl into church ou
Sundays to do his duty; and the monument had been
neglected in consequence. He was getting a little
better now; and, in a week or ten days' time, he hoped
to be strong enough to set to work and clean it.
This information—extracted from a long rambling
answer, in the broadest Cumberland dialect—told me
all that I most wanted to know. I gave the poor woman
a trifle, and returned at once to Limmeridge House.
The partial cleansing of the monument had evidently
been accomplished by a strange hand. Connecting
what I had discovered, thus far, with what I had sus-
pected after hearing the story of the ghost seen at
twilight, I wanted nothing more to confirm my resolu-
tion to watch Mrs. Fairlie's grave, in secret, that even-
ing; returning to it at sunset, and waiting within sight
of it till the night fell. The work of cleansing'';', the
monument had been left unfinished; and the person
by whom it had been begun might return to complete it.
On getting back to the house, I informed Miss
Halcombe of what I intended to do. She looked sur-
prised and uneasy, while I was explaining my purpose;
but she made no positive objection to the execution of
it. She only said, "I hope it may end well." Just


144 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
greyhound, the pet companion of all her walks, smartly
dressed in a scarlet cloth wrapper, to keep the sharp air
from his delicate skin. She did not seem to notice the
dog. She walked straight forward, with her head
drooping a little, and her arms folded in her cloak
The dead leaves which had whirled in the wind before
me, when I had heard of her marriage engagement in
the morning, whirled in the wind before her, and rose
and fell and scattered themselves at her feet, as she
walked on in the pale waning sunlight. The dog
shivered and trembled, and pressed against her dress
impatiently for notice and encouragement. But she
never heeded him. She walked on, farther and farther
away from me, with the dead leaves whirling about
her on the path—walked on, till my aching eyes
could see her no more, and I was left alone again with
my own heavy heart.
In another hour's time, I had done my work, and
the sunset was at hand. I got my hat and coat in the
hall, and slipped out of the house without meeting
any one.
The clouds were wild in the western heaven, and
the wind blew chill from the sea. Far as the shore
was, the sound of the surf swept over the intervening
moorland, and beat drearily in my ears, when I
entered the churchyard. Not a living creature was in
sight. The place looked lonelier than ever, as I chose
my position, and waited and watched, with my eyes
on the white cross that rose over Mrs. Fairlie's grave.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 145
tXIII.
The exposed situation of the churchyard had obliged
me to be cautious in choosing the position that I was
to occupy.
The main entrance to the church was on the side
next to the burial-ground; and the door was screened
by a porch walled in on either side. After some
little hesitation, caused by natural reluctance to
conceal myself, indispensable as that concealment was
to the object in view, I had resolved on entering the
porch. A loophole window was pierced in each of its
side walls. Through one of these windows I could
see Mrs. Fairlie's grave. The other looked towards
the stone quarry in which the sexton's cottage was
built. Before me, fronting the porch entrance, was a
patch of bare burial-ground, a line of low stone wall,
and a strip of lonely brown hill, with the sunset clouds
sailing heavily over it before the strong, steady wind.
No living creature was visible or audible—no bird flew
by me; no dog barked from the sexton's cottage.
The pauses in the dull beating of the surf, were filled
up by the dreary rustling of the dwarf trees near the
VOL. I. H


146 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
grave, and the cold faint bubble of the brook over
its stony bed. A dreary scene and a dreary hour.
My spirits sank fast at I counted out the minutes of
the evening in my hiding-place under the church
porch.
It was not twilight yet—the light of the setting sun
still lingered in the heavens, and little more than the
first half-hour of my solitary watch had elapsed—when
I heard footsteps, and a voice. The footsteps were
approaching from the other side of the church; and
the voice was a woman's.
"Don't you fret, my dear, about the letter," said
the voice, "I gave it to the lad quite safe, and the
lad he took it from me without a word. He went his
way and I went mine; and not a living soul followed
me, afterwards—that I'll warrant."
These words strung up my attention to a pitch of
expectation that was almost painful. There was
a pause of silence, but the footsteps still advanced.
In another moment, two persons, both women, passed
within my range of view from the porch window.
They were walking straight towards the grave; and
therefore they had their backs turned towards me.
One of the women was dressed in a bonnet and
shawl. The other wore a long travelling-cloak of a
dark blue colour, with the hood drawn over her head.
A few inches of her gown were visible below the cloak.
My heart beat fast as I noted the colour—it was
white.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 147
I
After advancing about half-way between the church
and the grave, they stopped; and the woman in the
cloak turned her head towards her companion. But
her side face, which a bonnet might now have allowed
me to see, was hidden by the heavy, projecting edge
of the hood.
"Mind you keep that comfortable warm cloak on,"
said the same voice which I had already heard—the
voice of the woman in the shawl. "Mrs. Todd is
right about your looking too particular, yesterday, all
in white. I'll walk about a little, while you're here;
churchyards being not at all in my way, whatever they
may be in yours. Finish what you want to do, before
I come back; and let us be sure and get home again
before night."
With those words, she turned about, and retracing
her steps, advanced with her face towards me. It was
the face of an elderly woman, brown, rugged, and
healthy, with nothing dishonest or suspicious in the
look of it. Close to the church, she stopped to pull
her shawl closer round her.
"Queer," she said to herself, "always queer, with
her whims and her ways, ever since I can remember
her. Harmless, though—as harmless, poor soul, as a
little child."
She sighed; looked about the burial-ground ner-
vously; shook her head as if the dreary prospect by
no means pleased her; and disappeared round the
corner of the church.
H 2


148 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
I doubted for a moment whether I ought to follow
and speak to her, or not. My intense anxiety to find
myself face to face with her companion helped me to
decide in the negative. I could ensure seeing the
woman in the shawl by waiting near the churchyard
until she came back—although it seemed more than
doubtful whether she could give me the information of
which I was in search. The person who had delivered
the letter was of little consequence. The person who
had written it was the one centre of interest, and the
one source of information; and that person I now felt
convinced was before me in the churchyard.
While these ideas were passing through my mind,
I saw the woman in the cloak approach close to the
grave, and stand looking at it for a little while. She
then glanced all round her, and, taking a white linen
cloth or handkerchief from under her cloak, turned
aside towards the brook. The little stream ran into
the churchyard under a tiny archway in the bottom of
the wall, and ran out again, after a winding course of
a few dozen yards, under a similar opening. She
dipped the cloth in the water, and returned to the
grave. I saw her kiss the white cross; then kneel
down before the inscription, and apply her wet cloth to
the cleansing of it.
After considering how I could show myself with the
least possible chance of frightening her, I resolved to
cross the wall before me, to skirt round it outside, and
to enter the churchyard again by the stile near the


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 149
grave, in order that she might see me as I approached.
She was so absorbed over her employment that she
did not hear me coming until I had stepped over the
stile. Then, she looked up, started to her feet with
a faint cry, and stood facing me in speechless and
motionless terror.
"Don't be frightened," I said. "Surely, you re-
member me?"
I stopped while I spoke—then advanced a few steps
gently—then stopped again—and so approached by
little and little, till I was close to her. If there had
been any doubt still left in my mind, it must have
been now set at rest. There, speaking affrightedly
for itself—there was the same face confronting me
over Mrs. Fairlie's grave, which had first looked
into mine on the high-road by night.
"You remember me?" I said. "We met very
late, and I helped you to find the way to London.
Surely you have not forgotten that?"
Her features relaxed, and she drew a heavy breath
of relief. I saw the new life of recognition stirring
slowly under the deathlike stillness which fear had set
on her face.
"Don't attempt to speak to me, just yet," I went
on. "Take time to recover yourself—take time to
feel quite certain that I am a friend."
"You are very kind to me," she murmured. "As
kind now, as you were then."
She stopped, and I kept silence on my side. I was


150 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
not granting time for composure to her only, I was
gaining time also for myself. Under the wan, wild
evening light, that woman and I were met together
again ; a grave between us, the dead about us, the
lonesome hills closing us round on every side. The
time, the place, the circumstances under which we
now stood face to face in the evening stillness of that
dreary valley; the life-long interests which might
hang suspended on the next chance words that passed
between us; the sense that, for aught I knew to the
contrary, the whole future of Laura Fairlie's life
might be determined, for good or for evil, by my win-
ning or losing the confidence of the forlorn creature
who stood trembling by her mother's grave—all
threatened to shake the steadiness and the self-control
on which every inch of the progress I might yet make
now depended. I tried hard, as I felt this, to possess
myself of all my resources; I did my utmost to turn
the few moments for reflection to the best account.
"Are you calmer, now?" I said, as soon as I
thought it time to speak again. "Can you talk to
me, without feeling frightened, and without forgetting
that I am a friend?"
"How did you come here?" she asked, without
noticing what I had just said to her.
"Don't you remember my telling you, when we
last met, that I was going to Cumberland? I have
been in Cumberland ever since; I have been staying
all the time at Limmeridge House."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 151
"At Limmeridge House!" Her pale face brightened
as she repeated the words; her wandering eyes fixed
on me with a sudden interest. "Ah, how happy you
must have been!" she said, looking at me eagerly,
without a shadow of its former distrust left in her
expression.
I took advantage of her newly-aroused confidence in
me, to observe her face, with an attention and a
curiosity which I had hitherto restrained myself from
showing, for caution's sake. I looked at her, with my
mind full of that other lovely face which had so omi-
nously recalled her to my memory on the terrace by
moonlight . I had seen Anne Catherick's likeness in
Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlie's likeness in
Anne Catherick—saw it all the more clearly because
the points of dissimilarity between the two were pre-
sented to me as well as the points of resemblance.
In the general outline of the countenance and general
proportion of the features; in the colour of the hair
and in the little nervous uncertainty about the lips;
in the height and size of the figure, and the carriage
of the head and body, the likeness appeared even
more startling than I had ever felt it to be yet. But
there the resemblance ended, and the dissimilarity,
in details began. The delicate beauty of Miss Fair-
lie's complexion, the transparent clearness of her eyes,
the smooth purity of her skin, the tender bloom of
colour on her lips, were all missing from the worn,
weary face that was now turned towards mine. Al-
s


152 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
though I hated myself even for thinking such a thing,
still, while I looked at the woman before me, the idea
would force itself into my mind that one sad change,
in the future, was all that was wanting to make the
likeness complete, which I now saw to be so imperfect
in detail. If ever sorrow and suffering set their pro-
faning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlie's
face, then, and then only, Anne Catherick and she
would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the
living reflexions of one another.
I shuddered at the thought. There was something
horrible in the blind, unreasoning distrust of the
future which the mere passage of it through my mind
seemed to imply. It was a welcome interruption to
be roused by feeling Anne Catherick's hand laid on
my shoulder. The touch was as stealthy and as
sudden as that other touch, which had petrified me
from head to foot on the night when we first met.
""You are looking at me; and you are thinking of
something," she said, with her strange, breathless
rapidity of utterance. "What is it?"
"Nothing extraordinary," I answered. "I was
only wondering how you came here."
"I came with a friend who is very good to me. I
have only been here two days."
"And you found your way to this place yester-
day?"
"How do you know that?"
"I only guessed it."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 153
She turned from me, and knelt down before the
inscription once more.
"Where should I go, if not here?" she said. "The
friend who was better than a mother to me, is the only
friend I have to visit at Limmeridge. Oh, it makes
my heart ache to see a stain on her tomb! It ought
to be kept white as snow, for her sake. I was tempted
to begin cleaning it yesterday; and I can't help
coming back to go on with it to-day. Is there any-
thing wrong in that? I hope not. Surely nothing
can be wrong that I do for Mrs. Fairlie's sake?"
The old grateful sense of her benefactress's kindness
was evidently the ruling idea, still in the poor creature's
mind—the narrow mind which had but too plainly
opened to no other lasting impression since that first
impression of her younger and happier days. I saw
that my best chance of winning her confidence lay in
encouraging her to proceed with the artless employ-
ment which she had come into the burial-ground to
pursue. She resumed it at once, on my telling her
she might do so; touching the hard marble as tenderly
as if it had been a sentient thing, and whispering the
words of the inscription to herself, over and over again,
as if the lost days of her girlhood had returned and
she was patiently learning her lesson once more at
Mrs. Fairlie's knees.
"Should you wonder very much," I said, preparing
the way as cautiously as I could for the questions that
were to come, "if I owned that it is a satisfaction to
H 3


154 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
me, as well as a surprise, to see you here? I felt
very uneasy about you after you left me in the cab."
She looked up quickly and suspiciously.
"Uneasy," she repeated. "Why?"
"A strange thing happened, after we parted, that
night. Two men overtook me in a chaise. They did
not see where I was standing; but they stopped near
me, and spoke to a policeman, on the other side of the
way."
She instantly suspended her employment. The
hand holding the damp cloth with which she had been
cleaning the inscription, dropped to her side. The
other hand grasped the marble cross at the head of
the grave. Her face turned towards me slowly, with
the blank look of terror set rigidly on it once more. I
went on at all hazards; it was too late now to draw
back.
"The two men spoke to the policeman," I said,
"and asked him if he had seen you. He had not seen
you; and then one of the men spoke again, and said
you had escaped from his Asylum."
She sprang to her feet, as if my last words had set
the pursuers on her track.
"Stop! and hear the end," I cried, "Stop! and
you shall know how I befriended you. A word from
me would have told the men which way you had gone
—and I never spoke that word. I helped your escape
—I made it safe and certain. Think, try to think.
Try to understand what I tell you."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 155
My manner seemed to influence her more than my
words. She made an effort to grasp the new idea.
Her hands shifted the damp cloth hesitatingly from
one to the other, exactly as they had shifted the little
travelling-bag on the night when I first saw her.
Slowly the purpose of my words seemed to force its
way through the confusion and agitation of her mind.
Slowly, her features relaxed, and her eyes looked at
me with their expression gaining in curiosity what it
was fast losing in fear.
"You don't think I ought to be back in the Asylum,
do you?" she said.
"Certainly not. I am glad you escaped from it; I
am glad I helped you."
"Yes, yes; you did help me indeed; you helped me
at the hard part," she went on, a little vacantly. "It
was easy to escape, or I should not have got away.
They never suspected me as they suspected the others.
I was so quiet, and so obedient, and so easily
frightened. The finding London was the hard part';
and there you helped me. Did I thank you at the
time? I thank you now, very kindly."
"Was the Asylum far from where you met me?
Come! show that you believe me to be your friend,
and tell me where it was."
She mentioned the place—a private Asylum, as its
situation informed me; a private Asylum not very far
from the spot where I had seen her—and then, with
evident suspicion of the use to which I might put her


156 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
answer, anxiously repeated her former inquiry: "You
don't think I ought to be taken back, do you?"
"Once again, I am glad you escaped; I am glad
you prospered well, after you left me," I answered.
"You said you had a friend in London to go to. Did
you find the friend?"
"Yes. It was very late; but there was a girl up
at needlework in the house, and she helped me to
rouse Mrs. Clements. Mrs. Clements is my friend. A
good, kind woman, but not like Mrs. Fairlie. Ah, no, nobody is like Mrs. Fairlie!"
"Is Mrs. Clements an old friend of yours? Have
you known her a long time?"
"Yes; she was a neighbour of ours once, at home,
in Hampshire; and liked me, and took care of me
when I was a little girl. Years ago, when she went
away from us, she wrote down in my prayer-book for
me, where she was going to live in London, and she
said, 'If you are ever in trouble, Anne, come to me.
I have no husband alive to say me nay, and no children
to look after; and I will take care of you.' Kind
words, were they not? I suppose I remember them
because they were kind. It's little enough I remember
besides—little enough, little enough!"
"Had you no father or mother to take care of you?"
"Father? I never saw him; I never heard mother
speak of him. Father? Ah, dear! he is dead I
suppose."
"And your mother?"


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 157
"I don't get on well with her. We are a trouble
and a fear to each other."
A trouble and a fear to each other! At those
words, the suspicion crossed my mind for the first time,
that her mother might be the person who had placed
her under restraint.
"Don't ask me about mother," she went on. "I'd
rather talk of Mrs. Clements. Mrs. Clements is like
you, she doesn't think that I ought to be back in the
Asylum; and she is as glad as you are that I escaped
from it. She cried over my misfortune, and said it
must be kept secret from everybody."
Her "misfortune." In what sense was she using
that word? In a sense which might explain her
motive in writing the anonymous letter? In a sense
which might show it to be the too common and too
customary motive that has led many a woman to inter-
pose anonymous hindrances to the marriage of the man
who has ruined her? I resolved to attempt the clear-
ing up of this doubt, before more words passed between
us on either side.
"What misfortune?" I asked.
"The misfortune of my being shut up," she
answered, with every appearance of feeling surprised at
my question. "What other misfortune could there be?"
I determined to persist, as delicately and forbear-
ingly as possible. It was of very great importance
that I should be absolutely sure of every step in the
investigation that I now gained in advance.
'


158 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"There is another misfortune," I said, "to which
a woman may be liable, and by which she may suffer
life-long sorrow and shame."
"What is it?" she asked, eagerly.
"The misfortune of believing too innocently in her
own virtue, and in the faith and honour of the man she
loves," I answered.
She looked up at me, with the artless bewilderment
of a child. Not the slightest confusion or change of
colour; not the faintest trace of any secret conscious-
ness of shame struggling to the surface, appeared in
her face—that face which betrayed every other emotion
with such transparent clearness. No words that ever
were spoken could have assured me, as her look and
manner now assured me, that the motive which I had
assigned for her writing the letter and sending it to
Miss Fairlie was plainly and distinctly the wrong one.
That doubt, at any rate, was now set at rest; but the
very removal of it opened a new prospect of uncertainty.
The letter, as I knew from positive testimony, pointed
at Sir Percival Glyde, though it did not name him.
She must have had some strong motive, originating in
some deep sense of injury, for secretly denouncing him
to Miss Fairlie, in such terms as she had employed—
and that motive was unquestionably not to be traced
to the loss of her innocence and her character. What-
ever wrong he might have inflicted on her was not of
that nature. Of what nature could it be?
"I don't understand you," she said, after evidently


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 159
trying hard, and trying in vain to discover the meaning
of the words I had last said to her.
"Never mind," I answered. "Let us go on with
what we were talking about. Tell me how long you
stayed with Mrs. Clements in London, and how you
came here."
"How long?" she repeated. "I stayed with Mrs.
Clements till we both came to this place, two days ago."
"You are living in the village, then?" I said. "It
is strange I should not have heard of you, though you
have only been there two days."
"No, no; not in the village. Three miles away at
a farm. Do you know the farm? They call it Todd's
Corner."
I remembered the place perfectly; we had often
passed by it in our drives. It was one of the oldest
farms in the neighbourhood, situated in a solitary,
sheltered spot, inland at the junction of two hills.
"They are relations of Mrs. Clements at Todd's
Corner," she went on, "and they had often asked her
to go and see them. She said she would go, and take
me with her, for the quiet and the fresh air. It was
very kind, was it not? I would have gone anywhere
to be quiet, and safe, and out of the way. But when
I heard that Todd's Corner was near Limmeridge—
oh! I was so happy I would have walked all the way
barefoot to get there, and see the schools and the village
and Limmeridge House again. They are very good
people at Todd's Corner. I hope I shall stay there a


160 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
long time. There is only one thing I don't like about
them, and don't like about Mrs. Clements"
"What is it?"
"They will tease me about dressing all in white—
they say it looks so particular. How do they know?
Mrs. Fairlie knew best . Mrs. Fairlie would never
have made me wear this ugly blue cloak. Ah! she
was fond of white in her lifetime; and here is white
stone about her grave—and I am making it whiter for
her sake. She often wore white herself; and she
always dressed her little daughter in white. Is Miss
Fairlie well and happy? Does she wear white now, as
she used when she was a girl?"
Her voice sank when she put the questions about
Miss Fairlie; and she turned her head farther and
farther away from me. I thought I detected, in the
alteration of her manner, an uneasy consciousness of
the risk she had run in sending the anonymous letter;
and I instantly determined so to frame my answer as
to surprise her into owning it.
"Miss Fairlie is not very well or very happy this
morning," I said.
She murmured a few words; but they were spoken
so confusedly, and in such a low tone, that I could not
even guess at what they meant.
"Did you ask me why Miss Fairlie was neither
well nor happy this morning?" I continued.
"No," she said, quickly and eagerly—" oh, no,' I
never asked that."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 161
"I will tell you without your asking," I went on.
"Miss Fairlie has received your letter."
She had been down on her knees for some little time
past, carefully removing the last weather-stains left
about the inscription while we were speaking together.
The first sentence of the words I had just addressed to
her made her pause in her occupation, and turn slowly
without rising from her knees, so as to face me. The
second sentence literally petrified her. The cloth
she had been holding dropped from her hands; her
lips fell apart; all the little colour that there was
naturally in her face left it in an instant.
"How do you know?" she said, faintly. "Who
showed it to you?" The blood rushed back into her
face—rushed overwhelmingly, as the sense rushed
upon her mind that her own words had betrayed her.
She struck her hands together in despair. "I never
wrote it," she gasped, afirightedly; "I know nothing
about it!"
"Yes," I said, "you wrote it, and you know about
it. It was wrong to send such a letter; it was wrong
to frighten Miss Fairlie. If you had anything to say
that it was right and necessary for her to hear, you
should have gone yourself to Limmeridge House;
you should have spoken to the young lady with your
own lips."
She crouched down over the flat stone of the grave,
till her face was hidden on it; and made no reply.
"Miss Fairlie will be as good and kind to you as


162 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
her mother was, if you mean well," I went on. "Miss
Fairlie will keep your secret, and not let you come to
any harm. Will you see her to-morrow at the farm?
Will you meet her in the garden at Limmeridge
House?"
"Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with
you!" Her lips murmured the words close on the
grave-stone: murmured them in tones of passionate
endearment, to the dead remains beneath. "You
know how I love your child, for your sake! Oh, Mrs.
Fairlie! Mrs. Fairlie! tell me how to save her. Be
my darling and my mother once more, and tell me
what to do for the best."
I heard her lips kissing the stone: I saw her hands
beating on it passionately. The sound and the sight
deeply affected me. I stooped down, and took the
poor helpless hands tenderly in mine, and tried to
soothe her.
It was useless. She snatched her hands from me,
and never moved her face from the stone. Seeing the
urgent necessity of quieting her at any hazard and by
any means, I appealed to the only anxiety that she
appeared to feel, in connexion with me and with my
opinion of her—the anxiety to convince me of her fit-
ness to be mistress of her own actions.
"Come, come," I said, gently. "Try to compose
yourself, or you will make me alter my opinion of you.
Don't let me think that the person who put you in the
Asylum, might have had some excuse"
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 163
The next words died away on my lips. The instant
I risked that chance reference to the person who had
put her in the Asylum, she sprang up on her knees.
A most extraordinary and startling change passed over
her. Her face, at all ordinary times so touching to
look at, in its nervous sensitiveness, weakness, and un-
certainty, became suddenly darkened by an expression
of maniacally intense hatred and fear, which communi-
cated a wild, unnatural force to every feature. Her
eyes dilated in the dim evening light, like the eyes of
a wild animal. She caught up the cloth that had
fallen at her side, as if it had been a living creature
that she could kill, and crushed it in both her hands
with such convulsive strength that the few drops of
moisture left in it trickled down on the stone beneath
her.
"Talk of something else," she said, whispering
through her teeth. "I shall lose myself if you talk of
that."
Every vestige of the gentler thoughts which had
filled her mind hardly a minute since seemed to be swept
from it now. It was evident that the impression left
by Mrs. Fairlie's kindness was not, as I had supposed,
the only strong impression on her memory. With the
grateful remembrance of her school-days at Lim-
meridge, there existed the vindictive remembrance of
the wrong inflicted on her by her confinement in the
Asylum. Who had done that wrong? Could it really
be her mother


164 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
It was hard to give up pursuing the inquiry to that
final point; but I forced myself to abandon all idea
of continuing it. Seeing her as I saw her now, it
would have been cruel to think of anything but the
necessity and the humanity of restoring her com-
posure.
"I will talk of nothing to distress you," I said,
soothingly.
"You want something," she answered, sharply and
suspiciously. "Don't look at me like that. Speak to
me; tell me what you want."
"I only want you to quiet yourself, and, when you
are calmer, to think over what I have said."
"Said?" She paused; twisted the cloth in her
hands, backwards and forwards; and whispered to
herself, "What is it he said?" She turned again
towards me, and shook her head impatiently. "Why
don't you help me?" she asked, with angry sudden-
ness.
"Yes, yes," I said; "I will help you; and you
will soon remember. I asked you to see Miss
Fairlie to-morrow, and to tell her the truth about
the letter."
"Ah! Miss Fairlie—Fairlie—Fairlie"
The mere utterance of the loved, familiar name
seemed to quiet her. Her face softened and grew like
itself again.
"You need have no fear of Miss Fairlie," I con-
tinued; "and no fear of getting into trouble through


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 165
the letter. She knows so much about it already, that
you will have no difficulty in telling her all. There
can be little necessity for concealment where there is
hardly anything left to conceal. You mention no
names in the letter; but Miss Fairlie knows that the
person you write of is Sir Percival Glyde"
The instant I pronounced that name she started to
her feet; and a scream burst from her that rang
through the churchyard and made my heart leap
in me with the terror of it. The dark deformity of
the expression which had just left her face, lowered on
it once more, with doubled and trebled intensity. The
shriek at the name, the reiterated look of hatred and
fear that instantly followed, told all. Not even a last
doubt now remained. Her mother was guiltless of
imprisoning her in the Asylum. A man had shut her
up—and that man was Sir Percival Glyde.
The scream had reached other ears than mine. On
one side, I heard the door of the sexton's cottage
open; on the other, I heard the voice of her com-
panion, the woman in the shawl, the woman whom she
had spoken of as Mrs. Clements.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" cried the voice, from
behind the clump of dwarf trees.
In a moment more, Mrs. Clements hurried into
view.
"Who are you?" she cried, facing me resolutely,
as she set her foot on the stile. "How dare you
frighten a poor helpless woman like that?"


166 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
She was at Anne Catherick's side, and had put one
arm around her, before I could answer. "What is
it, my dear?" she said. "What has he done to
you?"
"Nothing," the poor creature answered. "Nothing.
I'm only frightened."
Mrs. Clements turned on me with a fearless indig-
nation, for which I respected her.
"I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I de-
served that angry look," I said. "But I do not
deserve it. I have unfortunately startled her, without
intending it. This is not the first time she has seen
me. Ask her yourself, and she will tell you that I am
incapable of willingly harming her or any woman."
I spoke distinctly, so that Anne Catherick might
hear and understand me: and I saw that the words
and their meaning had reached her.
"Yes, yes," she said; "he was good to me once;
he helped me "She whispered the rest into her
friend's ear.
"Strange, indeed!" said Mrs. Clements, with a look
of perplexity. "It makes all the difference, though.
I'm sorry I spoke so rough to you, sir; but you must
own that appearances looked suspicious to a stranger.
It's more my fault than yours, for humouring her
whims, and letting her be alone in such a place as this.
Come, my dear—come home now."
I thought the good woman looked a little uneasy at
the prospect of the walk back, and I offered to go


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 167
with them until they were both within sight of home.
Mrs. Clements thanked me civilly, and declined. She
said they were sure to meet some of the farm-labourers,
as soon as they got to the moor.
"Try to forgive me," I said, when Anne Catherick
took her friend's arm to go away. Innocent as I had
been of any intention to terrify and agitate her, my
heart smote me as I looked at the poor, pale, fright-
ened face.
"I will try," she answered. "But you know too
much; I'm afraid you'll always frighten me now."
Mrs. Clements glanced at me, and shook her head
pityingly.
"Good night, sir," she said. "You couldn't help
"it, I know; but I wish it was me you had frightened,
and not her."
They moved away a few steps. I thought they had
left me; but Anne suddenly stopped, and separated
herself from her friend.
"Wait a little," she said. "I must say good-by."
She returned to the grave, rested both hands ten
derly on the marble cross, and kissed it
"I'm better now," she sighed, looking up at me
quietly. "I forgive you."
She joined her companion again, and they left the
burial-ground. I saw them stop near the church, and
speak to the sexton's wife, who had come from the cot-
tage, and had waited, watching us from a distance.


168 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
Then they went on again up the path that led to the
moor. I looked after Anne Catherick as she disap-
peared, till all trace of her had faded in the twilight—
looked as anxiously and sorrowfully as if that was the
last I was to see in this weary world of the woman in
white.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 169
XIV.
Half an hour later, I was back at the house, and
was informing Miss Halcombe of all that had hap-
pened.
She listened to me from beginning to end, with
a steady, silent attention, which, in a woman of her
temperament and disposition, was the strongest proof
that could be offered of the serious manner in which
my narrative affected her.
"My mind misgives me," was all she said when
I had done. "My mind misgives me sadly about the
future."
"The future may depend," I suggested, "on the
use we make of the present. It is not improbable that
Anne Catherick may speak more readily and un-
reservedly to a woman than she has spoken to me.
If Miss Fairlie"
"Not to be thought of for a moment," interposed
Miss Halcombe, in her most decided manner.
"Let me suggest, then," I continued, "that you
should see Anne Catherick yourself, and do all you
can to win her confidence. For my own part, I shrink
VOL. I. I


170 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
from the idea of alarming the poor creature a second
time, as I have most unhappily alarmed her already.
Do you see any objection to accompanying me to the
farm-house to-morrow?"
"None whatever. I will go anywhere and do
anything to serve Laura's interests. What did you
say the place was called?"
"You must know it well. It is called Todd's
Corner."
"Certainly. Todd's Corner is one of Mr. Fairlie's
farms. Our dairy-maid here is the farmer's second
daughter. She goes backwards and forwards con-
stantly, between this house and her father's farm;
and she may have heard or seen something which it
may be useful to us to know. Shall I ascertain, at
once, if the girl is down stairs?"
She rang the bell, and sent the servant with his
message. He returned, and announced that the
dairy-maid was then at the farm. She had not been
there for the last three days; and the housekeeper
had given her leave to go home, for an hour or two,
that evening.
"I can speak to her to-morrow," said Miss Hal
combe, when the servant had left the room again.
"In the mean time, let me thoroughly understand th>,
object to be gained by my interview with Anne
Catherick. Is there no doubt in your own mind that
the person who confined her in the Asylum was Sir
PercivalGlyde?"


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 171
"There is not the shadow of a doubt. The only
mystery that remains, is the mystery of his motive.
Looking to the great difference between his station
in life and hers, which seems to preclude all idea of
the most distant relationship between them, it is of the
last importance—even assuming that she really re-
quired to be placed under restraint—to know why he
should have been the person to assume the serious
responsibility of shutting her up"
"In a private Asylum, I think you said?"
"Yes, in a private Asylum, where a sum of money
which no poor person could afford to give, must have
been paid for her maintenance as a patient"
"I see where the doubt lies, Mr. Hartright; and
I promise you that it shall be set at rest, whether
Anne Catherick assists us to-morrow or not. Sir
Percival Glyde shall not be long in this house without
satisfying Mr. Gilmore, and satisfying me. My sister's
future is my dearest care in life; and I have influence
enough over her to give me some power, where her
marriage is concerned, in the disposal of it."
We parted for the night.
After breakfast, the next morning, an obstacle,
which the events of the evening before had put out
of my memory, interposed to prevent our proceeding
immediately to the farm. This was my last day at
Limmeridge House; and it was necessary, as soon as
the post came in, to follow Miss Halcombe's advice,
I 2


172 ' THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
and to ask Mr. Fairlie's permission to shorten my
engagement by a month, in consideration of an unfore-
seen necessity for my return to London.
Fortunately for the probability of this excuse, so far
as appearances were concerned, the post brought me
two letters from London friends, that morning. I
took them away at once to my own room; and sent
the servant with a message to Mr. Fairlie, requesting
to know when I could see him on a matter of business.
I awaited the man's return, free from the slightest
feeling of anxiety about the manner in which his
master might receive my application. With Mr.
Fairlie's leave or without it, I must go; The con-
sciousness of having now taken the first step on the
dreary journey which was henceforth to separate my
life from Miss Fairlie's seemed to have blunted my
sensibility to every consideration connected with my-
self. I had done with my poor man's touchy pride;
I had done with all my little artist vanities. No
insolence of Mr. Fairlie's, if he chose to be insolent,
could wound me now.
The servant returned with a message for which
I was not unprepared. Mr. Fairlie regretted that the
state of his health, on that particular morning, was
such as to preclude all hope of his having the pleasure
ot receiving me. He begged, therefore, that I would
accept his apologies, and kindly communicate what
I had to say, in the form of a letter. Similar messages
to this, had reached me, at various intervals, during


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 173
my three months' residence in the house. Throughout
the whole of that period, Mr. Fairlie had been
rejoiced to "possess" me, but had never been well
enough to see me for a second time. The servant
took every fresh batch of drawings, that I mounted
and restored, back to his master, with my " respects;"
and returned empty-handed with Mr. Fairlie's "kind
compliments," "best thanks," and "sincere regrets"
that the state of his health still obliged him to remain
a solitary prisoner in his own room. A more satis-
factory arrangement to both sides could not possibly
have been adopted. It would be hard to say which
of us, under the circumstances, felt the. most grateful
sense of obligation to Mr. Fairlie's accommodating
nerves.
I sat down at once to write the letter, expressing
myself in it as civilly, as clearly, and as briefly as
possible. Mr. Fairlie did not hurry his reply. Nearly
an hour elapsed before the answer was placed in my
hands. It was written with beautiful regularity and
neatness of character, in violet-coloured ink, on note-
paper as smooth as ivory and almost as thick as card-
board; and it addressed me in these terms:—
"Mr. Fairlie's compliments to Mr. Hartright. Mr.
Fairlie is more surprised and disappointed than he can
say (in the present state of his health) by Mr. Hart-
right's application. Mr. Fairlie is not a man of
business, but he has consulted his steward, who is, and


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 175
'J
went down stairs to the breakfast-room, and informed
Miss Halcombe that I was ready to walk with her
to the farm.
"Has Mr. Fairlie given you a satisfactory answer?"
she asked, as we left the house.
"He has allowed me to go, Miss Halcombe."
She looked up at me quickly; and then, for the
first time since I had known her, took my arm of her
own accord. No words could have expressed so
delicately that she understood how the permission to
leave my employment had been granted, and that she
gave me her sympathy, not as my superior, but as my
friend. I had not felt the man's insolent letter; but I
felt deeply the woman's atoning kindness.
On our way to the farm we arranged that Miss
Halcombe was to enter the house alone, and that
I was to wait outside, within call. We adopted this
mode of proceeding from an apprehension that my
presence, after what had happened in the churchyard
the evening before, might have the effect of renewing
Anne Catherick's nervous dread, and of rendering
her additionally distrustful of the advances of a lady
who was a stranger to her. Miss Halcombe left
me, with the intention of speaking, in the first instance,
to the farmer's wife (of whose friendly readiness
to help her in any way she was well assured), while
I waited for her in the near neighbourhood of the
house.
I had fully expected to be left alone, for some time.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 179
about the gossip which was going on in the room when
she turned faint?"
"Yes. But Mrs. Todd's household affairs seem to
have divided her attention, that evening, with the talk
in the farm-house parlour. She could only tell me
that it was 'just the news'—meaning, I suppose, that
they all talked as usual about each other."
"The dairymaid's memory may be better than her
mother's," I said. "It may be as well for you to
speak to the girl, Miss Halcombe, as soon as we get
back."
My suggestion was acted on the moment we re-
turned to the house. Miss Halcombe led me round
to the servants' offices, and we found the girl in the
dairy, with her sleeves tucked up to her shoulders,
cleaning a large milk-pan, and singing blithely over
her work.
"I have brought this gentleman to see your dairy,
Hannah," said Miss Halcombe. "It is one of the
sights of the house, and it always does you credit."
The girl blushed and curtseyed, and said, shyly,
that she hoped she always did her best to keep things
neat and clean.
"We have just come from your father's," Miss
Halcombe continued. "You were there yesterday
evening, I hear; and you found visitors at the
house?"
"Yes, miss."
"One of them was taken faint and ill, I am told?


180 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
I suppose nothing was said or done to frighten her?
You were not talking of anything very terrible were
you?"
"Oh, no, miss!" said the girl, laughing. "We
were only talking of the news."
"Your sisters told you the news at Todd's Corner,
I suppose?"
"Yes, miss."
"And you told them the news at Limmeridge
House?"
"Yes, miss. And I'm quite sure nothing was said
to frighten the poor thing, for I was talking when she
was taken ill. It gave me quite a turn, miss, to see
it, never having been taken faint myself."
Before any more questions could be put to her,
she was called away to receive a basket of eggs at
the dairy door. As she left us, I whispered to Miss
Halcombe:
"Ask her if she happened to mention, last night,
that ^visitors were expected at Limmeridge House."
Miss Halcombe showed me, by a look, that she
understood, and put the question as soon as the dairy-
maid returned to us.
"Oh, yes, miss; I mentioned that," said the girl,
simply. "The company coming, and the accident to
the brindled cow, was all the news I had to take to
the farm."
"Did you mention names? Did you tell them
that Sir Percival Glyde was expected on Monday?"


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 181
"Yes, miss—I told them Sir Percival Glyde was
coming. I hope there was no harm in it; I hope I
didn't do wrong."
"Oh no, no harm. Come, Mr. Hartright; Hannah
will begin to think us in the way, if we interrupt her
any longer over her work."
We stopped and looked at one another, the moment
we were alone again.
"Is there any doubt in your mind, now, Miss Hal-
combe?"
"Sir Percival Glvde shall remove that doubt, Mr.
Hartright—or, Laura Fairlie shall never be his wife."


182 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
XV.
As we walked round to the front of the house, a fly
from the railway approached us along the drive. Miss
Halcombe waited on the door steps until the fly drew
up; and then advanced to shake hands with an old
gentleman, who got out briskly the moment the steps
were let down. Mr. Gilmore had arrived.
I looked at him, when we were introduced to each
other, with an interest and a curiosity which I could
hardly conceal. This old man was to remain at
Limmeridge House after I had left it; he was to
hear Sir Percival Glyde's explanation, and was to
give Miss Halcombe the assistance of his experience
in forming her judgment; he was to wait until the
question of the marriage was set at rest; and his hand,
if that question were decided in the affirmative, was to
draw the settlement which bound Miss Fairlie irre-
vocably to her engagement. Even then, when I knew
nothing by comparison with what I know now, I
looked at the family lawyer with an interest which I
had never felt before in the presence of any man
breathing who was a total stranger to me.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 185
had drawn for her, nestling under the rough stone wall
in front of us, had turned to a pool of water, stagnating
round an island of draggled weeds. I gained the
summit of the hill; and looked at the view which we
had so often admired in the happier time. It was
cold and barren—it was no longer the view that I
remembered. The sunshine of her presence was far
from me; the charm of her voice no longer murmured
in my ear. She had talked to me, on the spot from
which I now looked down, of her father, who was her
last surviving parent; had told me how fond of each
other they had been, and how sadly she missed him
still, when she entered certain rooms in the house, and
when she took up forgotten occupations and amuse-
ments with which he had been associated. Was the
view that I had seen, while listening to those words,
the view that I saw now, standing on the hill-top by
myself? I turned, and left it; I wound my way back
again, over the moor, and round the sandhills, down to
the beach. There was the white rage of the surf,
and the multitudinous glory of the leaping waves—but
where was the place on which she had once drawn idle
figures with her parasol in the sand; the place where
we had sat together, while she talked to me about
myself and my home, while she asked me a woman's
minutely observant questions about my mother and my
sister, and innocently wondered whether I should ever
leave my lonely chambers and have a wife and a house
of my own? Wind and wave had long since smoothed


186 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
out the trace of her which she had left in those marks
on the sand. I looked over the wide monotony of the
sea-side prospect, and the place in which we two had
idled away the sunny hours, was as lost to me as if I
had never known it, as strange to me as if I stood
already on a foreign shore.
The empty silence of the beach struck cold to my
heart. I returned to the house and the garden, where
traces were left to speak of her at every turn.
On the west terrace walk, I met Mr. Gilmore. He
was evidently in search of me, for he quickened his
pace when we caught sight of each other. The state
of my spirits little fitted me for the society of a stranger.
But the meeting was inevitable; and I resigned my-
self to make the best of it.
"You are the very person I wanted to see," said
the old gentleman. "I had two words to say to you,
my dear sir; and, if you have no objection, I will avail
myself of the present opportunity. To put it plainly,
Miss Halcombe and I have been talking over family
affairs—affairs which are the cause of my being here—
and, in the course of our conversation, she was naturally
led to tell me of this unpleasant matter connected with
the anonymous letter, and of the share which you have
most creditably and properly taken in the proceedings
so far. That share, I quite understand, gives you an
interest which 'you might not otherwise have felt, in
knowing that the future management of the investiga-
tion, which you have begun, will be placed in safe


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 187
hands. My dear sir, make yourself quite easy on that
point—it will be placed in my hands."
"You are, in every way, Mr. Gilmore, much fitter
to advise and to act in the matter than I am. Is it an
indiscretion, on my part, to ask if you have decided
yet on a course of proceeding?"
"So far as it is possible to decide, Mr. Hartright, I
have decided. I mean to send a copy of the letter,
accompanied by a statement of the circumstances, to
Sir Percival Glyde's solicitor in London, with whom I
have some acquaintance. The letter itself, I shall
keep here, to show to Sir Percival as soon as he arrives.
The tracing of the two women, I have already provided
for, by sending one of Mr. Fairlie's servants—a con-
fidential person—to the station to make inquiries:
the man has his money and his directions, and he will
follow the women in the event of his finding any clue.
This is all that can be done until Sir Percival comes
on Monday, I have no doubt myself that every ex-
planation which can be expected from a gentleman
and a man of honour, he will readily give. Sir Percival
stands very high, sir—an eminent position, a reputation
above suspicion—I feel quite easy about results; quite
easy, I am rejoiced to assure you. Things of this sort
happen constantly in my experience. Anonymous
letters—unfortunate woman—sad state of society. I
don't deny that there are peculiar complications in this
case; but the case itself is, most unhappily, common
—common."


188 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"I am afraid, Mr. Gilmore, I have the misfortune
to differ from you in the view I take of the case."
"Just so, my dear sir—just so. I am an old man;
and I take the practical view. You are a young man;
and you take the romantic view. Let us not dispute
about our views. I live, professionally, in an atmo-
sphere of disputation, Mr. Hartright; and I am only
too glad to escape from it, as I am escaping here.
We will wait for events—yes, yes, yes; we will wait
for events. Charming place, this. Good shooting?
Probably not—none of Mr. Fairlie's land is preserved,
I think. Charming place, though; and delightful
people. You draw and paint, I hear, Mr. Hartright?
Enviable accomplishment. What style?"
We dropped into general conversation—or, rather,
Mr. Gilmore talked, and I listened. My attention
was far from him, and from the topics on which he
discoursed so fluently. The solitary walk of the last
two hours had wrought its effect on me—it had set the
idea in my mind of hastening my departure from
Limmeridge House. Why should I prolong the hard
trial of saying farewell by one unnecessary minute?
What further service was required of me by any one?
There was no useful purpose to be served by my stay
in Cumberland; there was no restriction of time in the
permission to leave which my employer had granted to
me. Why not end it, there and then?
I determined to end it. There were some hours of
daylight still left—there was no reason why my journey


190 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
best to make our last evening renew the golden bygone
time—the time that could never come again. She had
put on the dress which I used to admire more than
any other that she possessed—a dark blue silk, trimmed
quaintly and prettily with old-fashioned lace; she
came forward to meet me with her former readiness;
she gave me her hand with the frank, innocent good
will of happier days. The cold fingers that trembled
,round mine; the pale cheeks with a bright red spot
burning in the midst of them; the faint smile that
struggled to live on her lips and died away from them
while I looked at it, told me at what sacrifice of herself
her outward composure was maintained. My heart
could take her no closer to me, or I should have loved
her then as I had never loved her yet.
Mr. Gilmore was a great assistance to us. He was
in high good humour, and he led the conversation with
unflagging spirit. Miss Halcombe seconded him
resolutely; and I did all I could to follow her example.
The kind blue eyes whose slightest changes of ex-
pression I had learnt to interpret so well, looked at
me appealingly when we first sat down to table. Help
my sister—the sweet anxious face seemed to say—help
my sister, and you will help me.
We got through the dinner, to all outward appear-
ance at least, happily enough. When the ladies had
risen from table, and when Mr. Gilmore and I were
left alone in the dining-room, a new interest presented
itself to occupy our attention, and to give me an oppor-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 191
tunity of quieting myself by a few minutes of needful
and welcome silence. The servant who had been de-
spatched to trace Anne Catherick and Mrs. Clements,
returned with his report, and was shown into the
dining-room immediately.
"Well," said Mr. Gilmore, "what have you found
out?"
"I have found out, sir," answered the man, "that
both the women took tickets, at our station here, for
Carlisle."
"You went to Carlisle, of course, when you heard
that?"
"I did, sir; but I am sorry to say I could find no
further trace of them."
"You inquired at the railway?"
"Yes, sir."
"And at the different inns?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you left the statement I wrote for you, at the
police station?"
"I did, sir."
"Well, my friend, you have done all you could, and
I have done all I could; and there the matter must
rest till further notice. We have played our trump
cards, Mr. Hartright," continued the old gentleman,
when the servant had withdrawn. "For the present,
at least, the women have out-manoeuvred us; and our
only resource, now, is to wait till Sir Percival Glyde
comes here on Monday next. Won't you fill your


192 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
glass again? Good bottle of port, that—sound, sub-
stantial, old wine. I have got better in my own cellar,
though."
We returned to the drawing-room—the room in
which the happiest evenings of my life had been passed;
the room which, after this last night, I was never to
see again. Its aspect was altered since the days had
shortened and the weather had grown cold. The glass
doors on the terrace side were closed, and hidden by
thick curtains. Instead of the soft twilight obscurity,
in which we used to sit, the bright radiant glow of
lamplight now dazzled my eyes. All was changed—
in-doors and out, all was changed.
Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore sat down together
at the card-table; Mrs. Vesey took her customary
chair. There was no restraint on the disposal of their
evening; and I felt the restraint on the disposal of
mine all the more painfully from observing it, I saw
Miss Fairlie lingering near the music stand. The
time had been when I might have joined her there. I
waited irresolutely—I knew neither where to go nor
what to do next. She cast one quick glance at me,
took a piece of music suddenly from the stand, and
came towards me of her own accord.
"Shall I play some of those little melodies of
Mozart's, which you used to like so much?" she
asked, opening the music nervously, and looking down
at it while she spoke.
Before I could thank her, she hastened to the piano.
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 19§
The chair near it, which I had always been accustomed
to occupy, stood empty. She struck a few chords—
then glanced round at me—then looked back again at
her music.
"Won't you take your old place?" she said, speak-
ing very abruptly, and in very low tones.
"I may take it on the last night," I answered.
She did not reply: she kept her attention riveted on
the music—music which she knew by memory, which
she had played over and over again, in former times,
without the book. I only knew that she had heard
me, I only knew that she was aware of my being close
to her, by seeing the red spot on the cheek that was
nearest to me, fade out, and the face grow pale all
over.
"I am very sorry you are going," she said, her
voice almost sinking to a whisper; her eyes looking
more and more intently at the music; her fingers
flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish
energy which I had never noticed in her before.
"I shall remember those kind words, Miss Fairlie,
long after to-morrow has come and gone."
The paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned
it farther away from me.
"Don't speak of to-morrow," she said. "Let the
music speak to us of to-night, in a happier language
than ours."
Her lips trembled—a faint sigh fluttered from them,
which she tried vainly to suppress. Her fingers
VOL. I. K
w"


194 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
wavered on the piano; she struck a false note; con-
fused herself in trying to set it right; and dropped her
hands angrily on her lap. Miss Halcombe and Mr.
Gilmore looked up in astonishment from the card-table
at which they were playing. Even Mrs. Vesey, dozing
in her chair, woke at the sudden cessation of the music,
and inquired what had happened.
"You play at whist, Mr. Hartright?" asked Miss
Halcombe, with her eyes directed significantly at the
place I occupied.
I knew what she meant; I knew she was right;
and I rose at once to go to the card-table. As I left the
piano, Miss Fairlie turned a page of the music, and
touched the keys again with a surer hand.
"I will play it," she said, striking the notes almost
passionately. "I will play it on the last night."
"Come, Mrs. Vesey," said Miss Halcombe; "Mr.
Gilmore and-I are tired of ecarte—come and be Mr.
Hartright's partner at whist."
The old lawyer smiled satirically. His had been
the winning hand; and he had just turned up a king.
He evidently attributed Miss Halcombe's abrupt
change in the card-table arrangements to a lady's
inability to play the losing game.
The rest of the evening passed without a word or a
look from her. She kept her place at the piano; and I
kept mine at the card-table. She played unintermit-
tingly—played as if the music was her only refuge
from herself. Sometimes, her fingers touched the notes


196 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
Miss Fairlie came last. I could not trust myself
to look at her, when I took her hand, and when I
thought of the next morning.
"My departure must be a very early one," I said.
"I shall be gone, Miss Fairlie, before you"
"No, no," she interposed, hastily ; " not before I am
out of my room. I shall be down to breakfast with
Marian. I am not so ungrateful, not so forgetful of
the past three months"
Her voice failed her; her hand closed gently round
mine—then dropped it suddenly. Before I could say,
"Good night," she was gone.
The end comes fast to meet me—comes inevitably,
as the light of the last morning came at Limmeridge
House.
It was barely half-past seven when I went down
stairs—but I found them both at the breakfast-table
waiting for me. In the chill air, in the dim light, in the
gloomy morning silence of the house, we three sat down
together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. The struggle
to preserve appearances was hopeless and useless; and
I rose to end it.
As I held out my hand, as Miss Halcombe, who
was nearest to me, took it, Miss Fairlie turned away
suddenly, and hurried from the room.
"Better so," said Miss Halcombe, when the door
had closed—"better so, for you and for her."
I waited a moment before I could speak—it was


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 197
hard to lose her, without a parting word, or a parting
look. I controlled myself; I tried to take leave of Miss
Halcombe in fitting terms; but all the farewell words
I would fain have spoken, dwindled to one sentence.
"Have I deserved that you should write to me?"
was all I could say.
"You have nobly deserved everything that I can do
for you, as long as we both live. Whatever the end
is, you shall know it."
"And if I can ever be of help again, at any future
time, long after the memory of my presumption and
my folly is forgotten"
I could add no more. My voice faltered, my eyes
moistened, in spite of me.
She caught me by both hands—she pressed them
with the strong, steady grasp of a man—her dark eyes
glittered—her brown complexion flushed deep—the
force and energy of her face glowed and grew beauti-
ful with the pure inner light of her generosity and her
pity.
"I will trust you—if ever the time comes, I will
trust you as my friend and her friend; as my brother
and her brother." She stopped; drew me nearer to
her—the fearless, noble creature—touched my fore-
head, sisterlike, with her lips; and called me by my
Christian name. "God bless you, Walter!" she said.
"Wait here alone, and compose yourself—I had better
not stay for both our sakes; I had better see you go
from the balcony upstairs."


198 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
She left the room. I turned away towards the
window, where nothing faced me but the lonely autumn
landscape—I turned away to master myself, before I,
too, left the room in my turn, and left it for ever.
A minute passed—it could hardly have been more
—when I heard the door open again softly; and the
rustling of a woman's dress on the carpet, moved to-
wards me. My heart beat violently as I turned round.
Miss Fairlie was approaching me from the farther end
of the room.
She stopped and hesitated, when our eyes met, and
when she saw that we were alone. Then, with that
courage which women lose so often in the small emer-
gency, and so seldom in the great, she came on nearer
to me, strangely pale and strangely quiet, drawing one
hand after her along the table by which she walked,
and holding something at her side, in the other, which
was hidden by the folds of her dress.
"I only went into the drawing-room," she said,
"to look for this. It may remind you of your visit
here, and of the friends you leave behind you. You
told me I had improved very much when I did it—
and I thought you might like"
She turned her head away, and offered me a little
sketch drawn throughout by her own pencil, of the
summer-house in which we had first met. The paper
trembled in her hand as she held it out to me—trem-
bled in mine, as I took it from her.
I was afraid to say what I felt—I only answered:


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 199
"It shall never leave me; all my life long it shall be the treasure that I prize most. I am very grateful
for it—very grateful to you, for not letting me go
away without bidding you good-by."
"Oh!" she said, innocently, " how could I let you
go, after we have passed so many happy days together!"
"Those days may never return, Miss Fairlie—my
way of life and yours are very far apart. But if a time
should come, when the devotion of my whole heart
and soul and strength will give you a moment's happi-
ness, or spare you a oment's sorrow, will you try to
remember the poor drawing-master who has taught
you? Miss Halcombe has promised to trust me—
will you promise, too?"
The farewell sadness in the kind-blue eyes shone
dimly through her gathering tears.
"I promise it," she said, in broken tones. "Oh,
don't look at me like that! I promise it with all my
heart."
I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my
hand.
"You have many friends who love you, Miss Fair-
lie. Your happy future is the dear object of many
hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the dear
object of my hopes too?"
The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested
one trembling hand on the table to steady herself,
while she gave me the other. I took it in mine—I held
it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it,


200 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
my lips pressed it—not in love; oh, not in love, at
that last moment, but the agony and the self-
abandonment of despair.
"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 WOMAN IN WHITE. 201
-■I .J 'RN'II III l.llll
THE STORY CONTINUED
VINCENT GILMORE, OF CHANCERY LANE, SOLICITOR
K 3





THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 203
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 occur-
rence. My appearance here, as narrator, is the
necessary consequence of this arrangement. I was
present during the sojourn of Sir Percival Glyde in


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 205
eyes and hair; and her elder daughter, Miss Halcombe,
strongly reminds me of her. Miss Fairlie played to us
in the evening—not so well as usual, I thought. We
had a rubber at whist; a mere profanation, so far as
play was concerned, of that noble game. I had been
favourably impressed by Mr. Hartright, on our first
introduction to one another; but I soon discovered
that he was not free from the social failings incidental
to his age. There are three things that none of the
young men of the present generation can do. They
can't sit over their wine; they can't play at whist; and
they can't pay a lady a compliment. Mr. Hartright
was no exception to the general rule. Otherwise, even
in those early days and on that short acquaintance, he
struck me as being a modest and gentlemanlike young
man.
So the Friday passed. I say nothing about the
more serious matters which engaged my attention on
that day—the anonymous letter to Miss Fairlie; the
measures I thought it right to adopt when the matter
was mentioned to me; and the conviction I entertained
that every possible explanation of the circumstances
would be readily afforded by Sir Percival Glyde,
having all been fully noticed, as I understand, in the
narrative which precedes this On the Saturday, Mr. Hartright had left before I
got down to breakfast. Miss Fairlie kept her room all
day; and Miss Halcombe appeared to me to be out of
spirits. The house was not what it used to be in the


206 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
time of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Fairlie. I took a walk
by myself in the forenoon: and looked about at some
of the places which I first saw when I was staying at
Limmeridge to transact family business, more than
thirty years since. They were not what they used to
be either.
At two o'clock Mr. Fairlie sent to say he was well
enough to see me. He had not altered, at any rate,
since I first knew him. His talk was to the same
purpose as usual—all about himself and his ailments,
his wonderful coins, and his matchless Rembrandt
etchings. The moment I tried to speak of the business
that had brought me to his house, he shut his eyes and
said I "upset" him. I persisted in upsetting him by
returning again and again to the subject. All I could
ascertain was that he looked on his niece's marriage as
a settled thing, that her father had sanctioned it, that
he sanctioned it himself, that it was a desirable mar-
riage, and that he should be personally rejoiced when
the worry of it was over. As to the settlement, if I
would consult his niece, and afterwards dive as deeply
as I pleased into my own knowledge of the family
affairs, and get everything ready, and limit his share
in the business, as guardian, to saying, Yes, at the
right moment—why of course he would meet my views,
and everybody else's views, with infinite pleasure. In
the mean time, there I saw him, a helpless sufferer,
confined to his room. Did I think he looked as if he
wanted teasing? No. Then why tease him?
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 207
I might, perhaps, have been a little astonished at
this extraordinary absence of all self-assertion on Mr.
Fairlie's part, in the character of guardian, if my
knowledge of the family affairs had not been sufficient
to remind me that he was a single man, and that he
had nothing more than a life-interest in the Lim-
meridge property. As matters stood, therefore, I was
neither surprised nor disappointed at the result of the
interview. Mr. Fairlie had simply justified my ex-
pectations—and there was an end of it.
Sunday was a dull day, out of doors and in. A
letter arrived for me from Sir Percival Glyde's solicitor,
acknowledging the receipt of my copy of the anonymous
letter, and my accompanying statement of the case.
Miss Fairlie joined us in the afternoon, looking pale
and depressed, and altogether unlike herself. I had
some talk with her, and ventured on a delicate allusion
to Sir Percival. She listened, and said nothing. All
other subjects she pursued willingly; but this subject
she allowed to drop. I began to doubt whether she
might not be repenting of her engagement—just as
young ladies often do, when repentance comes too
late.
On Monday Sir Percival Glyde arrived.
I found him to be a most prepossessing man, so far
as manners and appearance were concerned. He
looked rather older than I had expected; his head
being bald over the forehead, and his face somewhat
marked and worn. But his movements were as active


208 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
and his spirits as high as a young man's. His meeting
with Miss Halcomhe was delightfully hearty and un-
affected; and his reception of me, upon my being
presented to him, was so easy and pleasant that we got
on together like old friends. Miss Fairlie was not
with us when he arrived, but she entered the room
about ten minutes afterwards. Sir Percival rose and
paid his compliments with perfect grace. His evident
concern on seeing the change for the worse in the
young lady's looks was expressed with a mixture of
tenderness and respect, with an unassuming delicacy
of tone, voice, and manner, which did equal credit to
his good breeding and his good sense. I was rather
surprised, under these circumstances, to see that Miss
Fairlie continued to be constrained and uneasy in his
presence, and that she took the first opportunity of
leaving the room again. Sir Percival neither noticed
the restraint in her reception of him, nor her sudden
withdrawal from our society. He had not obtruded
his attentions on her while she was present, and he did
not embarrass Miss Halcombe by any allusion to her
departure when she was gone. His tact and taste
were never at fault on this or on any other occasion
while I was in his company at Limmeridge House.
As soon as Miss Fairlie had left the room, he spared
us all embarrassment on the subject of the anonymous
letter, by adverting to it of his own accord. He had
stopped in London on his way from Hampshire; had
seen his solicitor; had read the documents forwarded


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 20$
by me; and had travelled on to Cumberland, anxious
to satisfy our minds by the speediest and the fullest
explanation that words could convey. On hearing him
express himself to this effect, I offered him the original
letter which I had kept for his inspection. He thanked
me, and declined to look at it; saying that he had seen
the copy, and that he was quite willing to leave the
original in our hands.
The statement itself, on which he immediately en-
tered, was as simple and satisfactory as I had all along
anticipated it would be.
Mrs. Catherick, he informed us, had, in past years,
laid him under some obligations for faithful services
rendered to his family connexions and to himself. She
had been doubly unfortunate in being married to a
husband who had deserted her, and in having an only
child whose mental faculties had been in a disturbed
condition from a very early age. Although her mar-
riage had removed her to a part of Hampshire far
distant from the neighbourhood in which Sir Percival's
property was situated, he had taken care not to lose
sight of her; his friendly feeling towards the poor
woman, in consideration of her past services, having
been greatly strengthened by his admiration of the
patience and courage with which she supported her
calamities. In course of time, the symptoms of mental
affliction in her unhappy daughter increased to such a
serious extent, as to make it a matter of necessity to
place her under proper medical care. Mrs. Catherick
.


210 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
herself recognised this necessity; but she also felt the
prejudice common to persons occupying her respectable
station, against allowing her child to be admitted, as a
pauper, into a public Asylum. Sir Percival had
respected this prejudice, as he respected honest inde-
pendence of feeling in any rank of life; and had
resolved to mark his grateful sense of Mrs. Catherick's
early attachment to the interests of himself and his
family, by defraying the expense of her daughter's
maintenance in a trustworthy private Asylum. To
her mother's regret, and to his own regret, the unfor-
tunate creature had discovered the share which
circumstances had induced him to take in placing her
under restraint, and had conceived the most intense
hatred and distrust of him in consequence. To that
hatred and distrust—which had expressed itself in
various ways in the Asylum—the anonymous letter,
written after her escape, was plainly attributable. If
Miss Halcombe's or Mr. Gilmore's recollection of the
document did not confirm that view, or if they wished
for any additional particulars about the Asylum (the
address of which he mentioned, as well as the names
and addresses of the two doctors on whose certificates
the patient was admitted), he was ready to answer any
question and to clear up any uncertainty. He had
done his duty to the unhappy young woman, by in-
structing his solicitor to spare no expense in tracing
her, and in restoring her once more to medical care;
and he was now only anxious to do his duty towards


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 211
Miss Fairlie and towards her family, in the same plain,
straightforward way. <
I was the first to speak in answer to this appeal.
My own course was plain to me. It is the great
beauty of the Law that it can dispute any human
statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced
to any form. If I had felt professionally called upon
to set up a case against Sir Percival Glyde, on the
strength of his own explanation, I could have done so
beyond all doubt. But my duty did not lie in this
direction: my function was of the purely judicial kind.
I was to weigh the explanation we had just heard; to
allow all due force to the high reputation of the
gentleman who offered it; and to decide honestly
whether the probabilities, on Sir Percival's own show-
ing, were plainly with him, or plainly against him.
My own conviction was that they were plainly with
him; and I accordingly declared that his explanation
was, to my mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one.
Miss Halcombe, after looking at me very earnestly,
said a few words, on her side, to the same effect—
with a certain hesitation of manner, however, which
the circumstances did not seem to me to warrant. I
am unable to say, positively, whether Sir Percival
noticed this or not. My opinion is that he did; see-
ing that he pointedly resumed the subject, although
he might, now, with all propriety, have allowed it to
drop.
"If my plain statement of facts had only been


212 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
addressed to Mr. Gilmore," he said, "I should con-
sider any further reference to this unhappy matter as
unnecessary. I may fairly expect Mr. Gilmore, as a
gentleman, to believe me on my word; and when he
has done me that justice, all discussion of the subject
between us has come to an end. But my position
with a lady is not the same, I owe to her, what I
would concede to no man alive—a proof of the truth
of my assertion. You cannot ask for that proof, Miss
Halcombe; and it is therefore my duty to you, and
still more to Miss Fairlie, to offer it. May I beg
that you will write at once to the mother of this unfor-
tunate woman—to Mrs. Catherick—to ask for her
testimony in support of the explanation which I have
just offered to you."
I saw Miss Halcombe change colour, and look a
little uneasy. Sir Percival's suggestion, politely as it
was expressed, appeared to her, as it appeared to me,
to point, very delicately, at the hesitation which her
manner had betrayed a moment or two since.
"I hope, Sir Percival, you don't do me the in-
justice to suppose that I distrust you," she said,
quickly.
"Certainly not, Miss Halcombe. I make my pro-
posal purely as an act of attention to you. Will you
excuse my obstinacy if I still venture to press it?"
He walked to the writing-table, as he spoke; drew
a chair to it; and opened the paper case.
"Let me beg you to write the note," he said, "as a


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 213
favour to me. It need not occupy you more than a
few minute3. You have only to ask Mrs. Catherick
two questions. First, if her daughter was placed in
the Asylum with her knowledge and approval.
Secondly, if the share I took in the matter was such
as to merit the expression of her gratitude towards
myself? Mr. Gilmore's mind is at ease on this un-
pleasant subject; and your mind is at ease—pray set
my mind at ease also, by writing the note."
"You oblige me to grant your request, Sir Percival,
when I would much rather refuse it." With those
words Miss Halcombe rose from her place, and went
to the writing-table. Sir Percival thanked her, handed
her a pen, and then walked away towards the fireplace.
Miss Fairlie's little Italian greyhound was lying on
the rug. He held out his hand, and called to the dog
good-humouredly.
"Come, Nina," he said; "we remember each other,
don't we?"
The little beast, cowardly, and cross-grained as pet-
dogs usually are, looked up at him sharply, shrank
away from his outstretched hand, whined, shivered,
and hid itself under a sofa. It was scarcely possible
that he could have been put out by such a trifle as a
dog's reception of him—but I observed, nevertheless,
that he walked away towards the window very suddenly.
Perhaps his temper is irritable at times? If so, I can
sympathise with him. My temper is irritable at times,
too.


214 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
Miss Halcombe was not long in writing the note.
When it was done, she rose from the writing-table,
and handed the open sheet of paper to Sir Percival.
He bowed; took it from her; folded it up immediately,
without looking at the contents; sealed it; wrote the
address; and handed it back to her in silence. I
never saw anything more gracefully and more becom-
ingly done, in my life.
"You insist on my posting this letter, Sir Percival?"
said Miss Halcombe.
"I beg you will post it," he answered. "And now
that it is written and sealed up, allow me to ask one or
two last questions about the unhappy woman to whom
it refers. I have read the communication which Mr.
Gilmore kindly addressed to my solicitor, describing
the circumstances under which the writer of the anony-
mous letter was identified. But there are certain points
to which that statement does not refer. Did Anne
Catherick see Miss Fairlie?"
"Certainly not," replied Miss Halcombe.
"Did she see you?"
"No."
"She saw nobody from the house, then, except a
certain Mr. Hartright, who accidentally met with her
in the churchyard here?"
"Nobody else."
"Mr. Hartright was employed at Limmeridge as a
drawing-master, I believe? Is he a member of one of
the Water-Colour Societies?"


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 215
"I believe he is," answered Miss Halcombe.
He paused for a moment, as if he was thinking over
the last answer, and then added:
"Did you find out where Anne Catherick was living,
when she was in this neighbourhood?"
"Yes. At a farm on the moor, called Todd's
Corner."
"It-is a duty we all owe to the poor creature her-
self to trace her," continued Sir Percival. "She may
have said something at Todd's Corner which may help
us to find her. I will go there, and make inquiries on
the chance. In the mean time, as I cannot prevail on
myself to discuss this painful subject with Miss Fairlie,
may I beg, Miss Halcombe, that you will kindly
undertake to give her the necessary explanation,
deferring it of course until you have received the reply
to that note."
Miss Halcombe promised to comply with his request.
He thanked her—nodded pleasantly—and left us, to
go and establish himself in his own room. As he
opened the door, the cross-grained greyhound poked
out her sharp muzzle from under the sofa, and barked
and snapped at him.
"A good morning's work, Miss Halcombe," I said,
as soon as we were alone. "Here is an anxious day
well ended already."
"Yes," she answered; "no doubt. I am very glad
your mind is satisfied."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 217
"If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not
mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have
you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?"
"None whatever."
"Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory,
in his explanation?"
"How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered
me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony
in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the
woman's mother?"
"None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry
proves to be satisfactory, I, for one, cannot see what
more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect
from him."
"Then we will post the note," she said, rising to
leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to
the subject, until the answer arrives. Don't attach
any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better
reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about
Laura lately; and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the
strongest of us."
She left me abruptly; her naturally firm voice falter-
ing as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehe-
ment, passionate nature—a woman of ten thousand
in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her
from her earliest years; I had seen her tested, as she
grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my
long experience made me attach an importance to her
hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which
VOL. I. L


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 219
II.
We all met again at dinner-time.
Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that
I hardly recognized him as the same man whose quiet
tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so
strongly at the interview of the morning. The only
trace of his former self that I could detect, reappeared,
every now and then, in his manner towards Miss
Fairlie. A look or a word from her, suspended his
loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and
rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else
at table, in an instant. Although he never openly
tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost
the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift
into it by accident, and of saying the words to her,
under those favourable circumstances, which a man
with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly
addressed to her the moment they occurred to him.
Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be
sensible of his attentions, without being moved by them.
She was a little confused from time to time, when he
looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed
.-■
L 2


220 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good
looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of
a lover, were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far
as appearances went, were all offered in vain.
On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in
the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a
guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I after-
wards heard, led to no results. On his return, he had
an interview with Mr. Fairlie; and in the afternoon he
and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else
happened worthy of record. The evening passed as
usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no
change in Miss Fairlie.
The Wednesday's post brought with it an event—
the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the
document, which I have preserved, and which I may
as well present in this place. It ran as follows:—
"Madam,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of
your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was
placed under medical superintendence with my know-
ledge and approval, and whether the share taken in
the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit
the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman.
Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to
both those questions, and believe me to remain, your
obedient servant,
"Jane Anne Catherick."


222 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends; and, if
generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for
him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well.
You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that
he afterwards went out with me?"
"Yes. I saw you riding away together."
"We began the .ride by talking about Anne Cathe-
rick, and about the singular manner in which Mr.
Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that
subject; and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most un-
selfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said
he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was
willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to
that cause xthe alteration in her manner towards him
during his present visit . If, however, there was any
other more serious reason for the change, he would
entreat that no constraint might be placed on her in-
clinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he
asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind,
for the last time, what the circumstances were under
which the engagement between them was made, and
what his conduct had been from the beginning of the
courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection
on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he
should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of be-
coming her husband—and if she would tell him so
plainly, with her own lips—he would sacrifice himself
by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the
engagement."


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 223
"No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe.
As to my experience, few men in his situation would
have said as much."
She paused after I had spoken those words, and
looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity
and distress.
"I accuse nobody and I suspect nothing," she broke
out; abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the
responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage."
"That is exactly the course which Sir Percival
Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied,
in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force
her inclinations."
"And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I
give her his message."
"How can that possibly be?"
"Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gil-
more. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of
her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the
strongest feelings in "her nature—to her love for her
father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth.
You know that she never broke a promise in her life;
you know that she entered on this engagement at the
beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he
spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir
Percival Glyde on his death-bed."
I own that I was a little shocked at this view of
the case.
"Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that


224 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday, he specu-
lated on such a result as you have just mentioned?"
Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she
spoke.
"Do you think I would remain an instant in the
company of any man whom I suspected of such base-
ness as that?" she asked, angrily.
I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on
me in that way. We see so much malice and so little
indignation in my profession.
"In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in
our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the
record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir
Percival has a right to expect that your sister should
carefully consider her engagement from every reason-
able point of view before she claims her release from
it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against
him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared him-
self in your eyes and in mine. What objection can
she urge against him after that? What excuse can
she possibly have for changing her mind about a man
whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more
than two years ago?"
"In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no
excuse, I dare say. If she still hesitates, and if I
still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct,
if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear
the imputation as well as we can."
With those words, she suddenly rose, and left me.
"h,,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 225
When a sensible woman has a serious question put to
her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure
sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she
has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal
of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Hal-
combe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them
which they were keeping from Sir Percival and keep-
ing from me. I thought this hard on both of us—
especially on Sir Percival.
My doubts—or, to speak more correctly, my con-
victions—were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's lan-
guage and manner, when I saw her again, later in the
day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in tell-
ing me the result of her interview with her sister.
Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while
the affair of the letter was placed before her in the
right point of view; but when Miss Halcombe next
proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit
at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be
fixed for the marriage, she checked all further reference
to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival
would consent to spare her for the present, she would
undertake to give him his final answer, before the end
of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such
anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had pro-
mised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it;
and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all
further discussion of the marriage question had ended.
The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed
L 3


228 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of
the little water-colour drawing. The expression of
melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look
at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved un-
easily from object to object in the room; betraying
plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in
coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it
best to get to the purpose with as little delay as
possible.
"One of the errands, my dear, which brings me
here is to bid you good-by," I began. "I must get
back to London to-day ; and, before I leave, I want to
have a word with you on the subject of your own
affairs."
"I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore,"
she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy
old times to have you here."
"I hope I may be able to come back, and recall
those pleasant memories once more," I continued;
"but as there is some uncertainty about the future,
I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and
speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your
old friend; and I may remind you, I am sure, without
offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival
Glyde."
She took her hand off the little album as suddenly
as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers
twined together nervously in her lap; her eyes
looked down again at the floor; and an expression of


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 229
constraint settled on her face which looked almost like
an expression of pain.
"Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage
engagement?" she asked, in low tones.
"It is necessary to refer to it," I answered; "but
not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may
marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case,
I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settle-
ment; and I ought not to do that without, as a matter
of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my
only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us,
therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let
me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your
position is now, and what you may make it, if you
please, in the future."
I explained to her the object of a marriage-settle-
ment; and then told her exactly what her prospects
were—in the first place, on her coming of age, and,
in the second place, on the decease of her uncle—
marking the distinction between the property in which
she had a life interest only, and the property which
was left at her own control. She listened attentively,
with the constrained expression still on her face, and
her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap.
"And, now," I said, in conclusion, "tell me if you
can think of any condition which, in the case we have
supposed, you would wish me to make for you—
subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you
are not yet of age."


230 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
She moved uneasily in her chair—then looked in
my face, on a sudden, very earnestly.
"If it does happen," she began, faintly; "if I
am"
"If you are married," I added, helping her out.
"Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried,
with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gil-
more, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!"
Under other circumstances, I might perhaps have
been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation
of my question, and of the long explanation which had
preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke,
were of a kind to make me more than serious—they
distressed me. Her words, few as they were, be-
trayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill
for the future.
"Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you,
can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said.
"You hardly understood my question, I think. It
referred to your own property—to the disposal of your
money. Supposing you were to make a will, when you
come of age, who would you like the money to go to?"
"Marian has been mother and sister both to me,"
said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes
glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian,
Mr. Gilmore?"
"Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remem-
ber what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to
go to Miss Halcombe?"


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 231
She hesitated; her colour came and went; and her
hand stole back again to the little album.
"Not all of it," she said, "There is some one
else, besides Marian"
She stopped; her colour heightened; and the fingers
of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently
on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had
set them going mechanically with the remembrance
of a favourite tune.
"You mean some other member of the family
besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at
a loss to proceed.
The heightening colour spread to her forehead and
her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped
themselves fast round the edge of the book.
"There is some one else," she said, not noticing
my last words, though she had evidently heard them;
"there is some one else who might like a little keep-
sake, if—if I might leave it. There would be no
harm, if I should die first"
She paused again. The colour that had spread
over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The
hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a
little, and moved the book away from her. She
looked at me for an instant—then turned her head
aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor
as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her
face from me in her hands.
Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest,


232 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
happiest child that ever laughed the day through;
and to see her now, in the flower of her age and
her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this!
In the distress that she caused me, I forgot the
years that had passed, and the change they had made
in our position towards one another. I moved my
chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief
from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face
gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the
tears that were gathering in her eyes, with my own
hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten
long years ago.
It was the best way I could have taken to compose
her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled
faintly through her tears.
"I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said,
artlessly. "I have not been well—I have felt sadly
weak and nervous lately; and I often cry without
reason when I am alone. I am better now; I can
answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed."
"No, no, my dear," I replied; "we will consider
the subject as done with, for the present. You have
said enough to sanction my taking the best possible
care of your interests; and we can settle details at
another opportunity. Let us have done with business,
now, and talk of something else."
I led her at once into speaking on other topics.
In ten minutes' time, she was in better spirits; and I
rose to take my leave.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 233
"Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will
try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for
my interests if you will only come again."
Still clinging to the past—that past which I repre-
sented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in
hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back,
at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at
the end of mine.
"If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better,"
I said—" better and happier. God bless you, my
dear!"
She only answered by putting up her cheek to me
to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts; and mine
ached a little as I took leave of her.
The whole interview between us had hardly lasted
more than half an hour—she had not breathed a word, in
my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident
distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage—
and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side
of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had
entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had
fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was
treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters
might end in her taking him at his word and claiming
her release. A man of my age and experience ought
to have known better than to vacillate in this unrea-
sonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself;
I can only tell the truth, and say—so it was.
The hour for my departure was now drawing near.


234 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him
to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my
being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back,
written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and
best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is in-
expressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of your-
self. Good-by."
Just before I left, I saw Miss Halcombe, for a
moment, alone.
"Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she
asked.
"Yes," I replied- "She is very weak and nervous
—I am glad she has you to take care of her."
Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face atten-
tively.
"You are altering your opinion about Laura," she
said. "You are readier to make allowances for her
than you were yesterday."
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a
fencing match of words with a woman. I only
answered:
"Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till
I hear from you."
She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all
over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore—and so do you."
With those words she left me.
Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to
the carriage door.
"If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said,


238 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all
readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is
a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story; and that
Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be
their experience also, if they wish to understand the
narratives which are yet to come.
Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold
kind; comprising her possible inheritance of real pro-
perty, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute
inheritance of personal property, or money, when she
came of age.
Let us take the land first.
In the time of Miss Fairlie's paternal grandfather
(whom we will call Mr. Fairlie, the elder) the entailed
succession to the Limmeridge estate stood thus:
Mr. Fairlie, the elder, died and left three sons,
Philip, Frederick, and Arthur. As eldest son, Philip
succeeded to the estate. If he died without leaving a
son, the property went to the second brother, Fre-
derick. And if Frederick died also without leaving a
son, the property went to the third brother, Arthur.
As events turned out, Mr. Philip Fairlie died
leaving an only daughter, the Laura of this story;
and the estate, in consequence, went, in course of law,
to the second brother, Frederick, a single man. The
third brother, Arthur, had died many years before the
decease of Philip, leaving a son and a daughter. The
son, at the age of eighteen, was drowned at Oxford.
His death left Laura, the daughter of Mr. Philip


242 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
disposal, and the principal would go to her aunt, or
her cousin, on her death.
All preliminary explanations being now cleared out
of the way, I come, at last, to the real knot of the case
—to the twenty thousand pounds.
This sum was absolutely Miss Fairlie's own, on her
completing her twenty-first year; and the whole future
disposition of it depended, in the first instance, on the
conditions I could obtain for her in her marriage-settle-
ment. The other clauses contained in that document
were of a formal kind, and need not be recited here.
But the clause relating to the money is too important
to be passed over. A few lines will be sufficient to
give the necessary abstract of it.
My stipulation in regard to the twenty thousand
pounds, was simply this: The whole amount was to be
settled so as to give the income to the lady for her
life; afterwards to Sir Percival for his life; and the
principal to the children of the marriage. In default
of issue, the principal was to be disposed of as the
lady might by her will direct, for which purpose I
reserved to her the right of making a will. The effect
of these conditions may be thus summed up. If Lady
Glyde died without leaving children, her half-sister,
Miss Halcombe, and any other relatives or friends
whom she might be anxious to benefit, would, on her
husband's death, divide among them such shares of her
money as she desired them to have. If, on the other
hand, she died, leaving children, then their interest,


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 243
naturally and necessarily, superseded all other interests
whatsoever. This was the clause; and no one who
reads it, can fail, I think, to agree with me that it
meted out equal justice to all parties.
We shall see how my proposals were met on the
husband's side.
At the time when Miss Halcombe's letter reached
me, I was even more busily occupied than usual. But
I contrived to make leisure for the settlement. I had
drawn it, and had sent it for approval to Sir Percival's
solicitor, in less than a week from the time when Miss
Halcombe had informed me of the proposed mar-
riage.
After a lapse of two days, the document was re-
turned to me, with notes and remarks of the baronet's
lawyer. His objections, in general, proved to be of
the most trifling and technical kind, until he came to
the clause relating to the twenty thousand pounds.
Against this, there were double lines drawn in red
ink, and the following note was appended to them:
"Not admissible. The principal to go to Sir
Percival Glyde, in the event of his surviving Lady
Glyde, and there being no issue."
That is to say, not one farthing of the twenty thou-
sand pounds was to go to Miss Halcombe, or to any
other relative or friend of Lady Glyde's. The whole
sum, if she left no children, was to slip into the pockets
of her husband.
The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was
M 2


244 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
as short and sharp as I could make it. "My dear
sir. Miss Fairlie's settlement. I maintain the clause
to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly."
The rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour.
"My dear sir. Miss Fairlie's settlement. I maintain
the red ink to which you object, exactly as it stands.
Yours truly." In the detestable slang of the day, we
were now both "at a dead-lock," and nothing was left
for it but to refer to our clients on either side.
As matters stood, my client—Miss Fairlie not hav-
ing yet completed her twenty-first year—was her
guardian, Mr. Frederick Fairlie. I wrote by that
day's post and put the case before him exactly as it
stood; not only urging every argument I could think
of to induce him to maintain the clause as I had drawn
it, but stating to him plainly the mercenary motive which
was at the bottom of the opposition to my settlement of
the twenty thousand pounds. The knowledge of Sir
Percival's affairs which I had necessarily gained when
the provisions of the deed on his side were submitted
in due course to, my examination, had but too plainly
informed me that the debts on his estate were enor-
mous, and that his income, though nominally a large
one, was, virtually, for a man in his position, next to
nothing. The want of ready money was the practical
necessity of Sir Percival's existence; and his lawyer's
note on the clause in the settlement was nothing but
the frankly selfish expression of it.
Mr. Fairlie's answer reached me by return of post,


246 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
let us settle this little difference of ours byword of
mouth, if we can! Have you heard from your client
yet?"
"Yes. Have you heard from yours?"
"My dear, good sir! I wish I had heard from him
to any purpose—I wish, with all my heart, the re-
sponsibility was off my shoulders; but he is obstinate,—
or, let me rather say, resolute—and he won't take it
off. 'Merriman, I leave details to you. Do what you
think right for my interests; and consider me as hav-
ing personally withdrawn from the business until it is
all over.' Those were Sir Percival's words a fortnight
ago; and all I can get him to do now is to repeat them.
I am not a hard man, Mr. Gilmore, as you know.
Personally or privately, I do assure you, I should like
to sponge out that note of mine at this very moment.
But if Sir Percival won't go into the matter, if Sir
Percival will blindly leave all his interests in my sole
care, what course can I possibly take except the course
of asserting them? My hands are bound—don't you
see, my dear sir ?—my hands are bound."
"You maintain your note on the clause, then, to the
letter?" I said.
"Yes—deuce take it! I have no other alterna-
tive." He walked to the fireplace, and warmed him-
self, humming the fag end of a tune in a rich convivial
bass voice, "What does your side say?" he went
on; "now pray tell me—what does your side say?"
I was ashamed to tell him. I attempted to gain


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 247
time—nay, I did worse. My legal instincts got the
better of me; and I even tried to bargain.
"Twenty thousand pounds is rather a large sum to
be given up by the lady's friends at two days' notice,"
I said.
"Very true," replied Mr. Merriman, looking down
thoughtfully at his boots. "Properly put, sir—most
properly put!"
"A compromise, recognizing the interests of the
lady's family as well as the interests of the husband
might not, perhaps, have frightened my client quite so
much." I went on. "Come ! come! this contingency
resolves itself into a matter of bargaining after all.
What is the least you will take?"
"The least we will take," said Mr. Merriman, "is
nineteen - thousand - nine - hundred - and - ninety - nine-
pounds - nineteen - shillings - and - eleven - pence -three-
farthings. Ha! ha! ha! Excuse me, Mr. Gilmore.
I must have my little joke."
"Little enough!" I remarked. "The joke is just
worth the odd farthing it was made for."
Mr. Merriman was delighted. He laughed over my
retort till the room rang again. I was not half so
good-humoured, on my side; I came back to business,
and closed the interview.
"This is Friday," I said. "Give us till Tuesday
next for our final answer."
"By all means," replied Mr. Merriman. "Longer,
my dear sir, if you like." He took up his hat to go;


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 249
had little attention to give to any other subject; and,
the moment I was left alone again, I began to think
over what my next proceeding ought to be.
In the case of any other client, I should have acted
on my instructions, however personally distasteful to
me, and have given up the point about the twenty
thousand pounds on the spot. But I could not act with
this business-like indifference towards Miss Fairlie. I
had an honest feeling of affection and admiration for her;
I remembered gratefully that her father had been the
kindest patron and friend to me that ever man had; I
had felt towards her, while I was drawing the settlement,
as I might have felt, if I had not been an old bache-
lor, towards a daughter of my own; and I was deter-
mined to spare no personal sacrifice in her service and
where her interests were concerned. Writing a second
time to Mr. Fairlie was not to be thought of; it would
only be giving him a second opportunity of slipping
through my fingers. Seeing him and personally re-
monstrating with him, might possibly be of more use.
The next day was Saturday. I determined to take a
return ticket, and jolt my old bones down to Cumber-
land, on the chance of persuading him to adopt the
just, the independent, and the honourable course. It
was a poor chance enough, no doubt; but, when I had
tried it, my conscience would be at ease. I should then
have done all that a man in my position could do to
serve the interests of my old friend's only child.
The weather on Saturday was beautiful, a west wind
M 3


250 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
and a bright sun. Having felt latterly a return of that
fulness and oppression of the head, against which my
doctor warned me so seriously more than two years
since, I resolved to take the opportunity of getting a
little extra exercise, by sending my bag on before me,
and walking to the terminus in Euston-square. As I
came out into Holborn, a gentleman walking by
rapidly, stopped and spoke to me. It was Mr. Wal-
ter Hartright.
If he had not been the first to greet me, I should
certainly have passed him. He was so changed that I
hardly knew him again. His face looked pale and
haggard—his manner was hurried and uncertain—and
his dress, which I remembered as neat and gentleman-
like when I saw him at Limmeridge, was so slovenly
now, that I should really have been ashamed of the
appearance of it on one of my own clerks.
"Have you been long back from Cumberland?"
he asked. "I heard from Miss Halcombe lately. I
am aware that Sir Percival Glyde's explanation has
been considered satisfactory. Will the marriage take
place soon? Do you happen to know, Mr. Gilmore?"
He spoke so fast, and crowded his questions together
so strangely and confusedly that I could hardly follow
him. However accidentally intimate he might have
been with the family at Limmeridge, I could not see
that he had any right to expect information on their pri-
vate affairs; and I determined to drop him, as easily
as might be, on the subject of Miss Fairlie's marriage.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 251
"Time will show, Mr. Hartright," I said—" time
will show. I dare say if we look out for the marriage
in the papers we shall not be far wrong. Excuse my
noticing it—but I am sorry to see you not looking so
well as you were when we last met."
A momentary nervous contraction quivered about his
lips and eyes, and made me half reproach myself for
having answered him in such a significantly guarded
manner.
"I had no right to ask about her marriage," he
said, bitterly. "I must wait to see it in the newspapers
like other people. Yes," he went on, before I could
make any apologies, "I have not been well lately. I
want a change of scene and occupation. You have a
large circle of acquaintance, Mr. Gilmore. If you
should hear of any expedition abroad which may be in
want of a draughtsman, and if you have no friend of
your own who can take advantage of the opportunity,
I should feel greatly obliged by your letting me know
of it. I can answer for my testimonials being satis-
factory; and I don't care where I go, what the climate
is, or how long I am away." He looked about him,
while he said this, at the throng of strangers passing us
by on either side, in a strange, suspicious manner, as if
he thought that some of them might be watching us.
"If I hear of anything of the kind I will not fail
to mention it," I said; and then added, so as not to
keep him altogether at arm's length on the subject of the
Fairlies, "I am going down to Limmeridge to-day on


252 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
*
business. Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie are away
just now, on a visit to some friends in Yorkshire."
His eyes brightened, and he seemed about to say
something in answer; but the same momentary nervous
spasm crossed his face again. He took my hand,
pressed it hard, and disappeared among the crowd,
without saying another word. Though he was little
more than a stranger to me, I waited for a moment,
looking after him almost with a feeling of regret. I
had gained, in my profession, sufficient experience of
young men, to know what the outward signs and tokens
were of their beginning to go wrong; and, when I
resumed my walk to the railway, I am sorry to say I
felt more than doubtful about Mr. Hartright's future.
x


254 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
apartments. He was in his usual room, his usual
chair, and his usual aggravating state of mind and
body. When I went in, his valet was standing before
him, holding up for inspection a heavy volume of
etchings, as long and as broad as my office writing-
desk. The miserable foreigner grinned in the most
abject manner, and looked ready to drop with fatigue,
while his master composedly turned over the etchings,
and brought their hidden beauties to light with the
help of a magnifying glass.
"You very best of good old friends," said Mr.
Fairlie, leaning back lazily before he could look at
me, "are you quite well? How nice of you to come
here and see me in my solitude. Dear Gilmore I"
I had expected that the valet would be dismissed
when I appeared; but nothing of the sort happened.
There he stood, in front of his master's chair, trembling
under the weight of the etchings; and there Mr.
Fairlie sat, serenely twirling the magnifying glass be-
tween his white fingers and thumbs.
"I have come to speak to you on a very important
matter," I said; "and you will therefore excuse me,
if I suggest that we had better be alone."
The unfortunate valet looked at me gratefully.
Mr. Fairlie faintly repeated my last three words,
"better be alone," with every appearance of the
utmost possible astonishment.
I was in no humour for trifling; and I resolved to
make him understand what I meant.
■..


258 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
to treat his impertinence with the silent contempt that
it deserved.
"You are entirely wrong, sir," I said, "in suppos-
ing that I speak from any prejudice against Sir Perci-
val Glyde. I may regret that he has so unreservedly
resigned himself in this matter to his lawyer's direc-
tion as to make any appeal to himself impossible; but
I am not prejudiced against him. What I have said
would equally apply to any other man in his situation,
high or low. The principle I maintain is a recognised
principle. If you were to apply at the nearest town
here, to the first respectable solicitor you could find,
he would tell you, as a stranger, what I tell you, as a
friend. He would inform you that it is against all
rule to abandon the lady's money entirely to the man
she marries. He would decline, on grounds of com-
mon legal caution, to give the husband, under any cir-
cumstances whatever, an interest of twenty thousand
pounds in his wife's death."
"Would he really, Gilmore?" said Mr. Fairlie.
"If he said anything half so horrid I do assure you I
should tinkle my bell for Louis, and have him sent
out of the house immediately."
"You shall not irritate me, Mr. Fairlie—for your
niece's sake and for her father's sake, you shall not
irritate me. You shall take the whole responsibility
of this discreditable settlement on your own shoulders
before I leave the room."
"Don't!—now please don't!" said Mr. Fairlie.


260 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
I was too much disgusted to reply; I turned on my
heel, and left him in silence. There was an up train
at two o'clock in the afternoon; and by that train I
returned to London.
On the Tuesday I sent in the altered settlement,
which practically disinherited the very persons whom
Miss Fairlie's own lips had informed me she was most
anxious to benefit. I had no choice. Another lawyer
would have drawn up the deed if I had refused to un-
dertake it.
My task is done. My personal share in the events
of the family story extends no farther than the point
which I have just reached. Other pens than mine will
describe the strange circumstances which are now
shortly to follow. Seriously and sorrowfully, I close
this brief record. Seriously and sorrowfully, I repeat
here the parting words that I spoke at Limmeridge
House:—No daughter of mine should have been mar-
ried to any man alive under such a settlement as I was
compelled to make for Laura Fairlie.


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 261
THE STORY CONTINUED
BY
MAEIAN HALCOMBE,
IN EXTRACTS FROM HER DIARY.


"N


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 263
I.
* * # * * +
Limmeridge House, Nov. 8th.
This morning Mr. Gilmore left us.
His interview with Laura had evidently grieved and
surprised him more than he liked to confess. I felt
afraid, from his look and manner when we parted,
that she might have inadvertently betrayed to him the
real secret of her depression and of my anxiety. This
doubt grew on me so, after he had gone, that I de-
clined riding out with Sir Percival, and went up to
Laura's room instead.
I have been sadly distrustful of myself, in this diffi-
cult and lamentable matter, ever since I found out my
own ignorance of the strength of Laura's unhappy at-
tachment. I ought to have known that the delicacy
and forbearance and sense of honour which drew me
to poor Hartright, and made me so sincerely admire
and respect him, were just the qualities to appeal most
t The passages omitted, here and elsewhere, in Miss Hal-
cornbe's Diary, are only those which bear no reference to Miss
Fairlie or to any of the persons with whom she is associated in
these pages.


266 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
"Can I tell him that, when the engagement was
made for me by my father, with my own consent? I
should have kept my promise; not happily, I am afraid,
but still contentedly—" she stopped, turned her face to
me, and laid her cheek close against mine—" I should
have kept my engagement, Marian, if another love
had not grown up in my heart, which was not there
when I first promised to be Sir Percival's wife."
"Laura! you will never lower yourself by making a
confession to him?"
"I shall lower myself, indeed, if I gain my release
by hiding from him what he has a right to know."
"He has not the shadow of a right to know it!"
"Wrong, Marian, wrong! I ought to deceive no
one—least of all the man to whom my father gave me,
and to whom I gave myself." She put her lips to
mine, and kissed me. "My own love," she said,
softly, "you are so much too fond of me and so much
too proud of me, that you forget, in my case, what you
would remember in your own. Better that Sir Per-
cival should doubt my motives and misjudge my con-
duct if he will, than that I should be first false to him
in thought, and then mean enough to serve my own
interests by hiding the falsehood."
I held her away from me in astonishment. For the
first time in our lives, we had changed places; the re-
solution was all on her side, the hesitation all on mine.
I looked into the pale, quiet, resigned young face; I
saw the pure, innocent heart, in the loving eyes that


THE WOMAN INWHITE. 269
under her pillow, just in the place where she used to
hide her favourite toys when she was a child. I could
not find it in my heart to say anything; but I pointed
to the book and shook my head. She reached both
hands up to my cheeks, and drew my face down to
hers till our lips met.
"Leave it there to-night," she whispered; "to-
morrow may be cruel, and may make me say good-by
to it for ever."
9th.—The first event of the morning was not of a
kind to raise my spirits; a letter arrived for me, from
poor Walter Hartright. It is the answer to mine, de-
scribing the manner in which Sir Percival cleared
himself of the suspicions raised by Anne Catherick's
letter. He writes shortly and bitterly about Sir
Percival's explanations; only saying that he has no
right to offer an opinion on the conduct of those who
are above him. This is sad; but his occasional
references to himself grieve me still more. He says
that the effort to return to his old habits and pursuits,
grows harder instead of easier to him, every day; and
he implores me, if I have any interest, to exert it to
get him employment that will necessitate his absence
from England, and take him among new scenes and
new people. I have been made all the readier to
comply with this request, by a passage at the end of
his letter, which has almost alarmed me.
After mentioning that he has neither seen nor heard


272 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
of what I am going to say: I speak from my own
thoughts, not from hers. I am sure you will be kind
enough to understand that, before I go any farther?"
Sir Percival bowed. She had proceeded thus far,
with perfect outward tranquillity, and perfect pro-
priety of manner. She looked at him, and he looked
at her. They seemed, at the outset at least, resolved
to understand one another plainly.
"I have heard from Marian," she went on, "that I
have only to claim my release from our engagement,
to obtain that release from you. It was forbearing
and generous on your part, Sir Percival, to send me
such a message. It is only doing you justice to say
that I am grateful for the offer; and I hope and
believe that it is only doing myself justice to tell you
that I decline to accept it."
His attentive face relaxed a little. But I saw one
of his feet, softly, quietly, incessantly beating on the
carpet under the table; and I felt that he was secretly
as anxious as ever.
"I have not forgotten," she said, "that you asked
my father's permission before you honoured me with a
proposal of marriage. Perhaps, you have not forgot-
ten, either, what I said when I consented to our
engagement? I ventured to tell you that my father's
influence and advice had mainly decided me to give
you my promise. I was guided by my father, because
I had always found him the truest of all advisers, the
best and fondest of all protectors and friends. I have


276 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
The few plain words which would have brought him
back to the point from which he had wandered, were
just on my lips, when Laura checked me by speaking
again.
"I hope I have not made my painful acknowledg-
ment in vain," she continued. "I hope it has secured
me your entire confidence in what I have still to say?"
"Pray be assured of it." He made that brief
reply, warmly; dropping his hand on the table, while
he spoke, and turning towards us again. Whatever
outward change had passed over him, was gone now.
His face was eager and expectant—it expressed
nothing but the most intense anxiety to hear her next
words,
"I wish you to understand that I have not spoken
from any selfish motive," she said. "If you leave me,
Sir Percival, after what you have just heard, you do
not leave me to marry another man—you only allow
me to remain a-single woman for the rest of my life.
My fault towards you has begun and ended in my own
thoughts. It can never go any farther. No word has
passed "She hesitated, in doubt about the
expression she should use next; hesitated, in a mo-
mentary confusion which it was very sad and very
painful to see. "No word has passed," she patiently
and resolutely resumed, "between myself and the
person to whom I am now referring for the first and
last time in your presence, of my feelings towards him,
or of his feelings towards me—no word ever can pass


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 279
Her left hand still held mine; but her right hand
hung listlessly at her side. He raised it gently to his
lips—touched it with them, rather than kissed it—
bowed to me—and then, with perfect delicacy and dis-
cretion, silently quitted the room.
She neither moved, nor said a word, when he was
gone—she sat by me, cold and still, with her eyes fixed
on the ground. I saw it was hopeless and useless to
speak; and I only put my arm round her, and held
her to me in silence. We remained together so, for
what seemed a long and weary time—so long and so
weary, that I grew uneasy and spoke to her softly, in
the hope of producing a change.
The sound of my voice seemed to startle her into
consciousness. She suddenly drew herself away from
me, and rose to her feet.
"I must submit, Marian, as well as I can," she said.
"My new life has its hard duties; and one of them
begins to-day."
As she spoke, she went to a side-table near the
window, on which her sketching materials were placed;
gathered them together carefully; and put them in a
drawer of her cabinet. She locked the drawer, and
brought the key to me.
"I must part from everything that reminds me of
him," she said. "Keep the key wherever you please
—I shall never want it again."
Before I could say a word, she had turned away to
her bookcase, and had taken from it the album that


282 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
yesterday has decided. It is too late to go
back."
Sir Percival spoke to me this afternoon, about what
had passed in Laura's room. He assured me that
the unparalleled trust she had placed in him had
awakened such an answering conviction of her inno-
cence and integrity in his mind, that he was guiltless
of having felt even a moment's unworthy jealousy,
either at the time when he was in her presence, or
afterwards when he had withdrawn from it. Deeply
as he lamented the unfortunate attachment which had hindered the progress he might otherwise have made
in her esteem and regard, he firmly believed that it
had remained unacknowledged in the past, and that it
would remain, under all changes of circumstance which
it was possible to contemplate, unacknowledged in the
future. This was his absolute conviction; and the
strongest proof he could give of it was the assurance,
which he now offered, that he felt no curiosity to know
whether the attachment was of recent date or not, or
who had been the object of it. His implicit confidence
in Miss Fairlie made him satisfied with what she
had thought fit to say to him, and he was honestly
innocent of the slightest feeling of anxiety to hear
more.
He waited, after saying those words, and looked at
me. I was so conscious of my unreasonable prejudice
against him—so conscious of an unworthy suspicion,
that he might be speculating on my impulsively


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 283
answering the very questions which he had just de-
scribed himself as resolved not to ask—that I evaded
all reference to this part of the subject with something
like a feeling of confusion on my own part. At the
same time, I was resolved not to lose even the smallest
opportunity of trying to plead Laura's cause; and I
told him boldly that I regretted his generosity had not
carried him one step farther, and induced him to with-
draw from the engagement altogether.
Here, again, he disarmed me .by not attempting to
defend himself. He would merely beg me to remem-
ber the difference there was between his allowing Miss
Fairlie to give him up, which was a matter of submission
only, and his forcing himself to give up Miss Fairlie,
which was, in other words, asking him to be the suicide
of his own hopes. Her conduct of the day before had
so strengthened the unchangeable love and admiration
of two long years, that all active contention against
those feelings, on his part, was henceforth entirely out
of his power. I must think him weak, selfish, unfeeling
towards the very woman whom he idolised, and he
must bow to my opinion as resignedly as he could;
only putting it to me, at the same time, whether her
future as a single woman, pining under an unhappily
placed attachment which she could never acknowledge,
could be said to promise her a much brighter prospect
than her future as the wife of a man who worshipped
the very ground she walked on? In the last case
there was hope from time, however slight it might be
s


284 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
—in the first case, on her own showing, there was no
hope at all.
I answered him—more because my tongue is a
woman's, and must answer, than because I had any-
thing convincing to say. It was only too plain that
the course Laura had adopted the day before, had
offered him the advantage if he chose to take it—and
that he had chosen to take it. I felt this at the time,
and I feel it just as strongly now, while I write these
lines, in my own room. The one hope left, is that his motives really spring, as he says they do, from the
irresistible strength of his attachment to Laura.
Before I close my diary for to-night, I must record
that I wrote to-day, in poor Hartright's interests, to
two of my mother's old friends in London—both men
of influence and position. If they can do anything for
him, I am quite sure they will. Except Laura, I
never was more anxious about any one than I am now
about Walter. All that has happened since he left us
has only increased my strong regard and sympathy for
him. I hope I am doing right in trying to help him
to employment abroad—I hope, most earnestly and
anxiously, that it will end well.
11th.—Sir Percival had an interview with Mr.
Fairlie; and I was sent for to join them.
I found Mr. Fairlie greatly relieved at the prospect
of the "family worry" (as he was pleased to describe
his niece's marriage) being settled at last. So far, I


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 285
did not feel called on to say anything to him about
my own opinion; but when he proceeded, in his most
aggravatingly languid manner, to suggest that the time
for the marriage had better be settled next, in accordance
with Sir Percival's wishes, I enjoyed the satisfaction of
assailing Mr. Fairlie's nerves with as strong a protest
against hurrying Laura's decision as I could put into
words. Sir Percival immediately assured me that he
felt the force of my objection, and begged me to
believe that the proposal had not been made in conse-
quence of any interference on his part. Mr. Fairlie
leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, said we both
of us did honour to human nature, and then repeated
his suggestion, as coolly as if neither Sir Percival nor
I had said a word in opposition to it. It ended in my
flatly declining to mention the subject to Laura, unless
she first approached it of her own accord. I left the
room at once after making that declaration. Sir Per-
cival looked seriously embarrassed and distressed.
Mr. Fairlie stretched out his lazy legs on his velvet
footstool; and said: "Dear Marian! how I envy you
your robust nervous system! Don't bang the door!"
On going to Laura's room, I found that she had
asked for me, and that Mrs. Vesey had informed her
that I was with Mr. Fairlie. She inquired at once
what I had been wanted for; and I told her all that
had passed, without attempting to conceal the vexation
and annoyance that I really felt. Her answer sur-
prised and distressed me inexpressibly; it was the


286 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
very last reply that I should have expected her to
make.
"My uncle is right," she said. "I have caused
trouble and anxiety enough to you, and to all about
me. Let me cause no more, Marian—let Sir Percival
decide."
I remonstrated warmly: but nothing that I could
say moved her.
"I am held to my engagement," she replied; "I
have broken with my old life. The evil day will not
come the less surely because I put it off. No, Marian!
once again, my uncle is right. I have caused trouble
enough and anxiety enough; and I will cause no
more."
She used to be pliability itself; but she was now
inflexibly passive in her resignation—I might almost
say in her despair. Dearly as I love her, I should
have been less pained if she had been violently agi-
tated ; it was so shockingly unlike her natural character
to see her as cold and insensible as I saw her now.
12th.—Sir Percival put some questions to me, at
breakfast, about Laura, which left me no choice but to
tell him what she had said.
While we were talking, she herself came down and
joined us. She was just as unnaturally composed in
Sir Percival's presence as she had been in mine.
When breakfast was over, he had an opportunity of
saying a few words to her privately, in a recess of one


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 287
of the windows. They were not more than two or
three minutes together; and, on their separating, she
left the room with Mrs. Vesey, while Sir Percival came
to me. He said he had entreated her to favour him
by maintaining her privilege of fixing the time for the
marriage at her own will and pleasure. In reply, she
had merely expressed her acknowledgements, and had
desired him to mention what his wishes were to Miss
Halcombe.
I have no patience to write more. In this instance,
as in every other, Sir Percival has carried his point,
with the utmost possible credit to himself, in spite of
everything that I can say or do. His wishes are now,
what they were, of course, when he first came here;
and Laura having resigned herself to the one inevitable
sacrifice of the marriage, remains as coldly hopeless
and enduring as ever. In parting with the little occu-
pations and relics that reminded her of Hartright, she
seems to have parted with all her tenderness and all her
impressibility. It is only three o'clock in the afternoon
while I write these lines, and Sir Percival has left us
already, in the happy hurry of a bridegroom, to pre-
pare for the bride's reception at his house in Hampshire.
Unless some extraordinary event happens to prevent
it, they will be married exactly at the time when he
wished to be married—before the end of the year. My
very fingers burn as I write it!
13th.—A sleepless night, through uneasiness about
s~


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 289
warmest terms, for giving him an opportunity of leav-
ing his home, his country, and his friends. A private
expedition to make excavations among the ruined cities
of Central America is, it seems, about to sail from
Liverpool. The draughtsman who had been already
appointed to accompany it, has lost heart, and with-
drawn at the eleventh hour; and Walter is to fill his
place. He is to be engaged for six months certain,
from the time of the landing in Honduras, and for a year
afterwards, if the excavations are successful, and if the
funds hold out. His letter ends with a promise to
write me a farewell line, when they are all on board ship,
and when the pilot leaves theft. I can only hope and
pray earnestly that he and I are both acting in this
matter for the best. It seems such a serious step for
him to take, that the mere contemplation of it startles
me. And yet, in his unhappy position, how can I expect
him, or wish him, to remain at home?
16th.—The carriage is at the door. Laura and I
set out on our visit to the Arnolds to-day.
*****
Polesdean Lodge, Yorkshire.
23rd.—A week in these new scenes and among
these kind-hearted people has done her some good,
though not so much as I had hoped. I have resolved to
prolong our stay for another week at least. It is use-
less to go back to Limmeridge, till there is an absolute
necessity for our return.
vol. I. o


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 291
II.
Limmeridge House.
November 27th.—My forebodings are realized. The
marriage is fixed for the twenty-second of December.
The day after we left for Polesdean Lodge, Sir
Percival wrote, it seems, to Mr. Fairlie, to say that
the necessary repairs and alterations in his house in
Hampshire would occupy a much longer time in com-
pletion than he had originally anticipated. The
proper estimates were to be submitted to him as soon
as possible; and it would greatly facilitate his enter-
ing into definite arrangements with the workpeople, if
he could be informed of the exact period at which the
wedding ceremony might be expected to take place.
He could then make all his calculations in reference
to time, besides writing the necessary apologies to
friends who had been engaged to visit him that winter,
and who could not, of course, be received when the
house was in the hands of the workmen.
To this letter Mr. Fairlie had replied by request-
ing Sir Percival himself to suggest a day for the
o 2


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 293
the shock of the news I had to tell her. She turned
pale, and trembled violently.
"Not so soon!" she pleaded. "Oh, Marian, not
so soon!"
The slightest hint she could give was enough for me.
I rose to leave the room, and fight her battle for her
at once with Mr. Fairlie.
Just as my hand was on the door, she caught fast
hold of my dress, and stopped me.
"Let me go!" I said. "My tongue burns to tell
your uncle that he and Sir Percival are not to have it
all their own way."
She sighed bitterly, and still held my dress.
"No I" she said, faintly. "Too late, Marian—too
late!"
"Not a minute too late," I retorted. "The ques-
tion of time is our question—and trust me, Laura, to
take a woman's full advantage of it."
I unclasped her hand from my gown while I spoke;
but she slipped both her arms round my waist at
the same moment, and held me more effectually than
ever.
"It will only involve us in more trouble and more
confusion," she said. "It will set you and my uncle
at variance, and bring Sir Percival here again with
fresh causes of complaint"
"So much the better!" I cried out, passionately.
"Who cares for his causes of complaint? Are you to
break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man


294 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women.
Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our
peace—they drag us away from our parents' love and
our sisters' friendship—they take us body and soul to
themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as
they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does
the best of them give us in return? Let me go,
Laura—I'm mad when I think of it!"
The tears—miserable, weak, women's tears of vexa-
tion and rage—started to my eyes. She smiled sadly;
and put her handkerchief over my face, to hide for me
the betrayal of my own weakness—the weakness of all
others which she knew that I most despised.
"Oh, Marian!" she said. "You crying! Think
what you would say to me, if the places were changed,
and if those tears were mine. All your love and
courage and devotion will not alter what must happen,
sooner or later. Let my uncle have his way. Let us
have no more troubles and heart-burnings that any
sacrifice of mine can prevent. Say you will live with
me, Marian, when I am married—and say no more."
But I did say more. I forced back the contemptible
tears that were no relief to me, and that only dis-
tressed her; and reasoned and pleaded as calmly as I
could. It was of no avail. She made me twice
repeat the promise to live with her when she was
married, and then suddenly asked a question which
turned my sorrow and my sympathy for her into a.
new direction.
X


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 295
"While we were at Polesdean," she said, "you had
a letter, Marian"
Her altered tone; the abrupt manner in which she
looked away from me, and hid her face on my shoulder;
the hesitation which silenced her before she had com-
pleted her question, all told me, but too plainly, to
whom the half-expressed inquiry pointed.
"I thought, Laura, that you and I were never to
refer to him again," I said, gently.
"You had a letter from him?" she persisted.
"Yes," I replied, "if you must know it."
"Do you mean to write to him again?"
I hesitated. I had been afraid to tell her of his
absence from England, or of the manner in which my
exertions to serve his new hopes and projects had con-
nected me with his departure. What answer could I
make? He was gone where no letters could reach
him for months, perhaps for years, to come.
"Suppose I do mean to write to him again," I said,
at last. "What then, Laura?"
Her cheek grew burning hot against my neck; and
her arms trembled and tightened round me.
"Don't tell him about the twenty-second" she
whispered. "Promise, Marian—pray promise you
will not even mention my name to him when you write
next."
I gave the promise. No words can say how sorrow-
fully I gave it. She instantly took her arm from my
waist, walked away to the window, and stood looking


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 297
know it to be dangerous. If the discovery of this
makes me uneasy, what would it make her? It is
bad enough to feel that his departure hasdeprived us
of the friend of all others to whose devotion we could
trust, in the hour of need, if ever that hour comes and
finds us helpless. But it is far worse to know that he
has gone from us to face the perils of a bad climate, a
wild country, and a disturbed population. Surely it
would be a cruel candour to tell Laura this, without
a pressing and a positive necessity for it?
I almost doubt whether I ought not to go a step
farther, and burn the letter at once, for fear of its one
day falling into wrong hands. It not only refers to
Laura in terms which ought to remain a secret for
ever between the writer and me; but it reiterates his
suspicion—so obstinate, so unaccountable, and so
alarming—that he has been secretly watched since he
left Limmeridge. He declares that he saw the faces
of the two strange men, who followed him about the
streets of London, watching him among the crowd
which gathered at Liverpool to see the expedition
embark; and he positively asserts that he heard the
name of Anne Catherick pronounced behind him, as
he got into the boat. His own words are, "These
events have a meaning, these events must lead to a
result . The mystery of Anne Catherick is not cleared
up yet. She may never cross my path again; but if
ever she crosses yours, make better use of the
opportunity, Miss Halcombe, than I made of it. I
o 3


298 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
speak on strong conviction; I entreat you to remember
what I say." These are his own expressions. There
is no danger of my forgetting them—my memory is
only too ready to dwell on any words of Hartright's
that refer to Anne Catherick. But there is danger in
my keeping the letter. The merest accident might
place it at the mercy of strangers. I may fall ill; I
may die—better to burn it at once, and have one
anxiety the less.
It is burnt! The ashes of his farewell letter—the
last he may ever write to me—lie in a few black frag-
ments on the hearth. Is this the sad end to all that
sad story? Oh, not the end—surely, surely not the
end already!
29th.—The preparations for the marriage have
begun. The dressmaker has come to receive her
orders. Laura is perfectly impassive, perfectly careless
about the question of all others in which a woman's
personal interests are most closely bound up. She has
left it all to the dressmaker and to me. If poor Hart-
right had been the baronet, and the husband of her
father's choice, how differently she would have behaved!
How anxious and capricious she would have been; and
what a hard task the best of dressmakers would have
found it to please her!
30th.—We hear every day from Sir Percival. The
last news is, that the alterations in his house will occupy


300 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
must surely afford. She is not of a disposition to find
resources in the conventional gaieties and excitements of
London. They would only make the first oppression
of this lamentable marriage fall the heavier on her. I
dread the beginning of her new life more than words
can tell; but I see some hope for her if she travels—
none if she remains at home.
It is strange to look back at this latest entry in my
journal, and to find that I am writing of the marriage and
the parting with Laura, as people write of a settled
thing. It seems so cold and so unfeeling to be looking
at the future already in this cruelly composed way.
But what other way is possible, now that the time is
drawing so near? Before another month is over our
heads, she will be his Laura instead of mine! Sis
Laura! I am as little able to realize the idea which
those two words convey—my mind feels almost as
dulled and stunned by it, as if writing of her marriage
were like writing of her death.
December 1st.—A sad, sad day; a day that I have
no heart to describe at any length. After weakly put-
ting it off, last night, I was obliged to speak to her this
morning of Sir Percival's proposal about the wedding
tour.
In the full conviction that I should be with her,
wherever she went, the poor child—for a child she is still
in many things—was almost happy at the prospect of
seeing the wonders of Florence and Rome and Naples.


304 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
we may well claim to be beyond the reach of the trivial
conventionalities which hamper people in other places. I
wrote to Sir Percival to thank him for his polite offer,
and to beg that he would occupy his old rooms, just as
usual, at Limmeridge House.
17th.—He arrived to-day, looking, as I thought, a
little worn and anxious, but still talking and laughing
like a man in the best possible spirits. He brought
with him some really beautiful presents, in jewelry,
which Laura received with her best grace, and, out-
wardly at least, with perfect self-possession. The only
sign I can detect of the struggle it must cost her to
preserve appearances at this trying time, expresses
itself in a sudden unwillingness, on her part, ever to be
left alone. Instead of retreating to her own room, as
usual, she seems to dread going there. When I went
up-stairs to-day, after lunch, to put on my bonnet for a
walk, she volunteered to join me; and, again, before
dinner, she threw the door open between our two rooms,
so that we might talk to each other while we were dress-
ing. "Keep me always doing something," she said;
"keep me always in company with somebody. Don't
let me think—that is all I ask now, Marian—don't let
me think."
This sad change in her, only increases her attractions
for Sir Percival. He interprets it, I can see, to his own
advantage. There is a feverish flush in her cheeks, a
feverish brightness in her eyes, which he welcomes as
"N


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 305
the return of her beauty and the recovery of her spirits.
She talked to-day at dinner with a gaiety and careless-
ness so false, so shockingly out of her character, that I
secretly longed to silence her and take her away. Sir
Percival's delight and surprise appeared to be beyond
all expression. The anxiety which I had noticed on his
face when he arrived, totally disappeared from it; and
he looked even to my eyes, a good ten years younger
than he really is.
There can be no doubt—though some strange per-
versity prevents me from seeing it myself—there can
be no doubt that Laura's future husband is a very
handsome man. Regular features form a personal
advantage to begin with—and he has them. Bright
brown eyes, either in man or woman, are a great
attraction—and he has them. Even baldness, when it
is only baldness over the forehead (as in his case), is
rather becoming, than not, in a man, for it heightens
the head and adds to the intelligence of the face.
Grace and ease of movement; untiring animation of
manner; ready, pliant, conversational powers—all
these are unquestionable merits, and all these he
certainly possesses. Surely, Mr. Gilmore, ignorant as
he is of Laura's secret, was not to blame for feeling
surprised that she should repent of her marriage
engagement? Any one else in his place, would have
shared our good old friend's opinion. If I were asked,
at this moment, to say plainly what defects I have dis-
covered in Sir Percival, I could only point out two.


306 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
One, his incessant restlessness and excitability—which
may be caused, naturally enough, by unusual energy
of character. The other, his short, sharp, ill-tempered
manner of speaking to the servants—which may be only
a bad habit, after all. No: I cannot dispute it, and I
will not dispute it—Sir Percival is a very handsome
and a very agreeable man. There! I have written it
down, at last, and I am glad it's over.
18th.—Feeling weary and depressed, this morning,
I left Laura with Mrs. Vesey, and went out alone for
one of my brisk mid-day walks, which I have dis-
continued too much of late. I took the dry airy road,
over the moor, that leads to Todd's Corner. After
having been out half an hour, I was excessively sur-
prised to see Sir Percival approaching me from the
direction of the farm. He was walking rapidly,
swinging his stick; his head erect as usual, and his
shooting jacket flying open in the wind. When we
met, he did not wait for me to ask any questions
—he told me, at once, that he had been to the farm
to inquire if Mr. or Mrs. Todd had received any
tidings since his last visit to Limmeridge, of Anne
Catherick.
"You found, of course, that they had heard no-
thing ?" I said.
"Nothing whatever," he replied. "I begin to be
seriously afraid that we have lost her. Do you happen
to know," he continued, looking me in the face very


312 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
past, secretly making a warm Shetland shawl for her
dear pupil—a most beautiful and surprising piece of
work to be done by a woman at her age and with her
habits. The gift was presented this morning; and
poor warm-hearted Laura completely broke down
when the shawl was put proudly on her shoulders by
the loving old friend and guardian of her motherless
childhood. I was hardly allowed time to quiet them
both, or even to dry my own eyes, when I was sent for
by Mr. Fairlie, to be favoured by a long recital of his
arrangements for the preservation of his own tranquillity
on the wedding-day.
"Dear Laura" was to receive his present—a shabby
ring, with her affectionate uncle's hair for an ornament,
instead of a precious stone, and with a heartless French
inscription, inside, about congenial sentiments and
eternal friendship—" dear Laura" was to receive this
• tender tribute from my hands immediately, so that she
might have plenty of time to recover from the agitation
produced by the gift, before she appeared in Mr. Fair-
lie's presence. "Dear Laura" was to pay him a little
visit that evening, and to be kind enough not to make a
scene. "Dear Laura" was to pay him another little
visit in her wedding dress, the next morning, and to
be kind enough, again, not to make a scene. "Dear
Laura" was to look in once more, for the third time,
before going away, but without harrowing his feelings
by saying when she was going away, and without tears—
"in the name of pity, in the name of everything, dear


314 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
all the years of our close and happy intercourse we
almost avoided looking each other in the face; and we
refrained, by common consent, from speaking together
in private, through the whole evening. I can dwell on
it no longer. Whatever future sorrows may be in
store for me, I shall always look back on this twenty-
first of December as the most comfortless and most
miserable day of my life.
I am writing these lines in the solitude of my own
room, long after midnight; having just come back
from a stolen look at Laura in her pretty little white
bed—the bed she has occupied since the days of her
girlhood.
There she lay, unconscious that I was looking at
her—quiet, more quiet than I had dared to hope, but
not sleeping. The glimmer of the night-light showed
me that her eyes were only partially closed: the
traces of tears glistened between her eyelids. My
little keepsake—only a brooch—lay on the table at
her bedside, with her prayer-book,land the miniature
portrait of her father which she takes with her wherever
she goesv I waited a moment, looking at her from
behind her pillow, as she lay beneath me, with one
arm and hand resting on the white coverlid, so still,
so quietly breathing, that the frill on her night-dress
never moved—I waited, looking at her, as I have seen
her thousands of times, as I shall never see her again
—and then stole back to my room. My own love!
with all your wealth, and all your beauty, how friend-


THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 315
less you are! The one man who would give his heart's
life to serve you, is far away, tossing, this stormy
night, on the awful sea. Who else is left to you?
No father, no brother—no living creature but the
helpless, useless woman who writes these sad lines, and
watches by you for the morning, in sorrow that she
cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot conquer. Oh,
what a trust is to be placed in that man's hands to-
morrow! If ever he forgets it; if ever he injures a
hair of her head!
The Twenty-second of December. Seven o'clock.
A wild unsettled morning. She has just risen—better
and calmer, now that the time has come, than she was
yesterday.
Ten o'clock. She is dressed. We have kissed each
other; we have promised each other not to lose
courage. I am away for a moment in my own room.
In the whirl and confusion of my thoughts, I can
detect that strange fancy of some hindrance happening
to stop the marriage, still hanging about my mind. Is
it hanging about his mind, too? I see him from the
window, moving hither and thither uneasily among the
carriages at the door.—How can I write such folly!
The marriage is a certainty. In less than half an hour
we start for the church.
S


316 THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
Eleven o'clock. It is all over. They are married.
Three o'clock. They are gone! I am blind with
crying—I can write no more
THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
0 2225
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
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