As he advanced upon me, I retreated--as he grew vehement, I threw the door open and walked hastily away--he followed me with great strides, yet restrained by a strange cowardice which I knew how to take advantage of--and when his sister suddenly appeared from the next room, he stopped short, and threw a look of cowardly threatening, and yet entreaty upon me. "Do not let him follow me," I whispered to her--but I knew they would take care of that--and though I managed to leave the house at a decorous pace, whenever I got into the lane I began to run. I had always been swift-footed from a child--now I flew along the solitary lane, scarcely feeling that I touched the ground, holding the papers close under my mantle. When I came to Cottiswoode, flushed, and eager, and breathless, I did not pause even to throw back my hood, but hastened to the library. There was no one there--I hurried out disappointed, and asked for Mr. Southcote. He had gone out some time ago, I was told, and had left a message for me with Alice. I ran upstairs--the message was that he was suddenly called to Cambridge, and could not expect to return till late at night--and he hoped I would not think of waiting up for him--it was sure to be very late when he came home. I cannot tell, indeed, whether I was most relieved or disappointed to hear this; though I think the latter--yet now, at least, I would have time to think over this tale, to try if it was a fable, a monstrous invention, or if it could be true. It was late, and I got little leisure till baby was asleep, but when he was laid down to his rest, and Alice left the room, I sat down by her little table and unfolded my papers. My heart beat loud while I read them over--my fears sickened me. I had no longer the presence of Saville before me, strengthening me in disbelief and opposition. Alas, poor perverse fool! this was a fit conclusion to all the misery I had made; this long year of troubles ever since my marriage I had been bitterly and cruelly resenting the discovery that my husband was Edgar Southcote--now how gladly would I have hailed, how wildly rejoiced in, an assurance that he had indeed a title to that name. The more I examined, the more I pondered, the more my fears grew upon me. If Edgar was an unwitting, involuntary impostor--the thought was terrible--and still more terrible it was to think that Cottiswoode would then be _mine_. I thought I could have borne to leave a wrongful inheritance with him, had it been pure loss to both of us; but that _I_ should be "righted" by his downfall--ah, that was a justice I had not dreamed of! I could not rest--I wanted to do something immediately to settle this question; but that it was so late, I think I would have followed him to Cambridge--but that was not to be thought of now; so I wandered up and down from the library to my own room, always returning to the letters--and tried to conceal from myself how the hours went on, and how the household was going to rest.