The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

Four o’clock . The three hours that have passed since I made my last entry have turned the whole march of events at Blackwater Park in a new direction. Whether for good or for evil, I cannot and dare not decide. Let me get back first to the place at which I left off, or I shall lose myself in the confusion of my own thoughts. I went out, as I had proposed, to meet the messenger with my letter from London at the lodge gate. On the stairs I saw no one. In the hall I heard the Count still exercising his birds. But on crossing the quadrangle outside, I passed Madame Fosco, walking by herself in her favourite circle, round and round the great fishpond. I at once slackened my pace, so as to avoid all appearance of being in a hurry, and even went the length, for caution’s sake, of inquiring if she thought of going out before lunch. She smiled at me in the friendliest manner⁠—said she preferred remaining near the house, nodded pleasantly, and reentered the hall. I looked back, and saw that she had closed the door before I had opened the wicket by the side of the carriage gates. In less than a quarter of an hour I reached the lodge. The lane outside took a sudden turn to the left, ran on straight for a hundred yards or so, and then took another sharp turn to the right to join the high road. Between these two turns, hidden from the lodge on one side, and from the way to the station on the other, I waited, walking backwards and forwards. High hedges were on either side of me, and for twenty minutes, by my watch, I neither saw nor heard anything. At the end of that time the sound of a carriage caught my ear, and I was met, as I advanced