This blow was too much for me; I fainted in his arms. When I recovered, I found that he had carried me some distance; and, as soon as I began to sigh, he put me down and gave me some brandy-and-water out of his flask. “I’m always wanting that now, I think,” said I, trying weakly to smile as I remembered that two or three times lately Mr. Rayner had given it to me when I seemed to be on the point of fainting. “You are the first person who has made me go off quite, though,” I said. And poor Laurence took it as a reproach, and insisted on our stopping again in the fog for me to forgive him. We were making our way slowly, in the increasing darkness, down the lane to the high-road. “But what am I to do, Laurence?” I asked tremblingly. “Shall I tell Mr. Rayner--oh, I can’t think he is so wicked!--shall I tell him you have come back, and don’t want me to leave England?” “Not for the world, my darling,” said he, quickly. “Nobody in Geldham--not even at the Hall--knows I have come back. That is why I had to send for you on a pretext, and frighten you out of your life. The boy I sent for you did not know me. I got here in a fly from the station only a few minutes before I met him, and sent him off with the promise of a shilling if he brought you back with him.” “Ah, that is why he was so anxious not to lose sight of me for a moment! But what is all this mystery about, Laurence? Why don’t you go to the Hall and see your father?” “Ah, that is a secret! You won’t mind waiting till to-morrow to know that, will you, darling?” “Oh, yes, I shall! I want to know now,” said I coaxingly. “Won’t you trust me with your secret?” He did not want to do so; but I was curious, and hurt at his refusal; and, when he saw the tears come into my eyes, he gave way. He had been so much struck by the postscript to my letter, telling him of a suspicious-looking man whom I connected with the Denham Court robbery hanging about the Hall, and promising to visit it again on Wednesday, that he had obtained, by telegraphing to the chief of the metropolitan police, a force of constables to lie in wait about the Hall that night. He had appointed a trustworthy person to meet them at Beaconsburgh station and conduct them to a rendezvous he had appointed in the park, where they were probably waiting now. He was going to station them himself, under cover of the fog, in places round the Hall, among the shrubs, where they would be well concealed, and yet be near the approaches of the house, especially on that side where the strong-room was. The fog might work for them or against them; it might throw the thieves--if indeed they came, which was a matter of chance--into the constables’ hands, or it might help them to escape. That must be left to fortune.