“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 gentleman 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 indifferently as I could.

“Sir Percival Glyde.”