to her, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.'' She spoke those words quietly and sorrowfully, with a heavy, hopeless sigh, and then waited a little. Her face was confused and troubled, she seemed to be thinking, or trying to think. ``What was it I said just now?'' she asked after a while. ``When your mother is in my mind, everything else goes out of it. What was I saying? what was I saying?'' I reminded the poor creature, as kindly and delicately as I could. ``Ah, yes, yes,'' she said, still in a vacant, perplexed manner. ``You are helpless with your wicked husband. Yes. And I must do what I have come to do here -- I must make it up to you for having been afraid to speak out at a better time.'' ``What is it you have to tell me?'' I asked. ``The Secret that your cruel husband is afraid of,'' she answered. ``I once threatened him with the Secret, and frightened him. You shall threaten him with the Secret, and frighten him too.'' Her face darkened, and a hard, angry stare fixed itself in her eyes. She began waving her hand at me in a vacant, unmeaning manner. ``My mother knows the Secret,'' she said. ``My mother has wasted under the Secret half her lifetime. One day, when I was grown up, she said something to me. And the next day your husband --'''

`Yes! yes! Go on. What did she tell you about your husband?'

`She stopped again, Marian, at that point --'

`And said no more?'

`And listened eagerly. ``Hush!'' she whispered, still waving her hand at me. `Hush!'' She moved aside out of the doorway, moved slowly and stealthily, step by step, till I lost her past the edge of the boat-house.'

`Surely you followed her?'

`Yes, my anxiety made me bold enough to rise and follow her. rust as I reached the entrance, she appeared again suddenly, round the side of the boat-house. ``The Secret,'' I whispered to her -- ``wait and tell me the Secret!'' She caught hold of my arm, and looked at me with wild frightened eyes. ``Not now,'' she said, ``we are not alone -- we are watched. Come here tomorrow at this time -- by yourself -- mind -- by yourself.'' She Pushed me roughly into the boat-house again, and I saw her no more.'

`Oh, Laura, Laura, another chance lost! If I had only been near you she should not have escaped us. On which side did you lose sight of her?'

`On the left side, where the ground sinks and the wood is thickest.'

`Did you run out again? did you call after her?'

`How could I? I was too terrified to move or speak.'

`But when you did move -- when you came out --?'

`I ran back here, to tell you what had happened.'

`Did you see any one, or hear any one, in the plantation?'

`No, it seemed to be all still and quiet when I passed through it.'

I waited for a moment to consider. Was this person, supposed to have been secretly present at the interview, a reality, or the creature of Anne Catherick's excited fancy? It was impossible to determine. The one thing certain was, that we had failed again on the very brink of discovery -- failed utterly and irretrievably, unless Anne Catherick kept her appointment at the boat-house for the next day.

`Are you quite sure you have told me everything that passed? Every word that was said?' I inquired.