The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, in Extracts from Her Diary

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 nothing?” 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 attentively “if the artist⁠— Mr. Hartright⁠—is in a position to give us any further information?” “He has neither heard of her, nor seen her, since he left Cumberland,” I answered. “Very sad,” said Sir Percival, speaking like a man who was disappointed, and yet, oddly enough, looking at the same time like a man who was relieved. “It is impossible to say what misfortunes may not have happened to the miserable creature. I am inexpressibly annoyed at the failure of all my efforts to restore her to the care and protection which she so urgently needs.” This time he really looked annoyed. I said a few sympathising words, and we then talked of other subjects on our way back to the house. Surely my chance meeting with him on the moor has disclosed another favourable trait in his character? Surely it was singularly considerate and unselfish of him to think of Anne Catherick on the