‘I know the risks are great,’I said, ‘but it must be done. I’m not foolish enough to try this before I’m well prepared. I can wait Let him think his message has produced its effect. He will start to feel safe. Also, my position towards you and Laura ought to be a stronger one than it is now.’
‘How can it be stronger?’ She asked,surprised.
‘Marian, I would like you to say to Laura, gently, that her Husband is dead.’
‘Oh, Walter, so soon? You have a reason for this, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I cannot speak to Laura yet. But one day. Not too distant. I want to tell her that I love her.’
Marian looked at me for a time,then gave a sad, gentle smile.
‘Yes, I understand’s death.’
The next day Laura knew that death had released har from her marriage, and her husband’s name was never mentioned among us again. Our life returned to its usual pattern’ but I did not forget the
Count. I discovered that he had rented his house in St John’s Wood for another six months, so I was fairly sure he would still be in London, within my reach, when the time came to act. We finally solved the puzzle of who Anne Catherick’s father was. When I again to see Mrs Clements and to tell her about Anne’s death, she remembered where MrsCatherick had worked as a servant. Her employed had been a MrDonthorne. We wrote to MrDonthorne, who replied with some very Interesting information. Philip Fairlie, Laura’s father, had been a great friend of his when they were young, and a frequent house guest. He was a handsome man and fond of female company. Mr Donthorne was fairly certain that Philip Fairlie had been staying at his house when MrsCatherick was employed as a servant, in the year before Anne was born. When Marian and I checked the dates; when we considered that Anne and Laura looked so alike; and when we took into Anne’s father, and so Anne was Laura’s half-sister. Now, at last, the woman in white, that strange sad shadow walking in the loneliness of the night, could rest in peace, Four months passed. Laura grew stronger in body and in mind. She was almost her old self. And when we talked, it was as we usedto talk at Limmeridge. If I touched her by accident, I felf my heart beating fast, and I saw the answering colour in her face.
In April, went for a holiday at the seaside. While we were there I told Marian that when we returned to London, I was determined to force a confession from Count Fosco - to make him tell me the real date of Laura’s journey to London.
‘But if I am to challenge the Count, for Laura’s safety, I think I should challenge him as her husband. Do you agree, Marian?’
‘With every word,’ she said. ‘I parted you both once. Wait here, my brother, my best and dearest friend! Till Laura comes. and tells you what I have done now!’
She kissed my forehead and left the room. I waited by thewindow, staring out at the beach, seeing nothing, hardly able to breathe. The door opened, and Laura came in alone. When we parted at Limmeridge, she had come into the room slowly, in sorrowand hesitation. Now she ran to me, with the light of happiness shining in her face. She put her arms around me, and her sweet lips came to meet mine.
‘My darling’ she whispered, ‘may we say we love each other
now? Oh, I am so happy at last!’
Ten days later we were even happier. We were married.