_Later_.--By climbing out on the roof of the verandah, I have overheard
a conversation between the count and Sir Percival. They spoke with
complete frankness--with fiendish frankness--to one another. Fosco
pointed out that his friend was desperately in need of money, and that,
as Laura had refused to sign the document, he could not secure it by
ordinary means. If Laura died, Sir Percival would inherit £20,000, and
Fosco himself obtain through his wife £10,000. Sir Percival confessed
that Anne Catherick had a secret which endangered his position. This
secret, he surmised, she had told to Laura; and Laura, being in love
with Walter Hartright--he had discovered this--would use it. The count
inquired what Anne Catherick was like.
"Fancy my wife after a bad illness with a touch of something wrong in
her head, and there is Anne Catherick for you," answered Sir Percival.
"What are you laughing about?"
"Make your mind easy, Percival," he said. "I have my projects here in my
big head. Sleep, my son, the sleep of the just."
I crept back to my room soaked through with the rain. Oh, my God, am I
going to be ill? I have heard the clock strike every hour. It is so
cold, so cold; and the strokes of the clock--the strokes I can't
count--keep striking in my head....
[At this point the diary ceases to be legible.]
_IV.--The Story Completed by Walter Hartright on His Return, from
Several Manuscripts_
The events that happened after Marian Halcombe fell ill while I was
still absent in South America I will relate briefly.
Count Fosco discovered Anne Catherick, and immediately took steps to put
into execution the plot he had hinted at. Wearing the clothes of Lady
Glyde, the unfortunate girl was taken to a house in St. John's Wood
where the real Lady Glyde was expected to stay when passing through town
on her way to Cumberland. Lady Glyde, on pretence that her half-sister
had been removed to town, was induced to visit London, where she was met
by Count Fosco, and at once placed in a private asylum in the name of
Anne Catherick. Her statement that she was Lady Glyde was held to be
proof of the unsoundness of her mind. Unfortunately for the count's
plans, the real Anne Catherick died the day before the incarceration of
Lady Glyde, but, as there was no one to prove the dates of these events,
both Fosco and Sir Percival regarded themselves as secure. With great
pomp the body of Anne Catherick was taken to Limmeridge and buried in
the name of Lady Glyde.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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