The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

harmlessly in the freedom of her former life. It is quite possible that I may be altogether wrong in this idea. My own impression, however, is, that I am right. Time will show. And the magician who has wrought this wonderful transformation⁠—the foreign husband who has tamed this once wayward English woman till her own relations hardly know her again⁠—the Count himself? What of the Count? This in two words: He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had married a tigress, instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me , I should have made his cigarettes, as his wife does⁠—I should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she holds hers. I am almost afraid to confess it, even to these secret pages. The man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short days he has made his way straight into my favourable estimation, and how he has worked the miracle is more than I can tell. It absolutely startles me, now he is in my mind, to find how plainly I see him!⁠—how much more plainly than I see Sir Percival, or Mr. Fairlie, or Walter Hartright, or any other absent person of whom I think, with the one exception of Laura herself! I can hear his voice, as if he was speaking at this moment. I know what his conversation was yesterday, as well as if I was hearing it now. How am I to describe him? There are peculiarities in his personal appearance, his habits, and his amusements, which I should blame in the boldest terms, or ridicule in the most