stablished. Would success in both those cases do more than supply an
excellent foundation for a trial in a court of law? Would the
recognition and the handwriting prove her identity to Mr. Fairlie and
take her back to Limmeridge House, against the evidence of her aunt,
against the evidence of the medical certificate, against the fact of
the funeral and the fact of the inscription on the tomb? No! We could
only hope to succeed in throwing a serious doubt on the assertion of
her death, a doubt which nothing short of a legal inquiry can settle.
I will assume that we possess (what we have certainly not got) money
enough to carry this inquiry on through all its stages. I will assume
that Mr. Fairlie's prejudices might be reasoned away--that the false
testimony of the Count and his wife, and all the rest of the false
testimony, might be confuted--that the recognition could not possibly
be ascribed to a mistake between Laura and Anne Catherick, or the
handwriting be declared by our enemies to be a clever fraud--all these
are assumptions which, more or less, set plain probabilities at
defiance; but let them pass--and let us ask ourselves what would be the
first consequence or the first questions put to Laura herself on the
subject of the conspiracy. We know only too well what the consequence
would be, for we know that she has never recovered her memory of what
happened to her in London. Examine her privately, or examine her
publicly, she is utterly incapable of assisting the assertion of her
own case. If you don't see this, Marian, as plainly as I see it, we
will go to Limmeridge and try the experiment to-morrow."

"I DO see it, Walter. Even if we had the means of paying all the law
expenses, even if we succeeded in the end, the delays would be
unendurable, the perpetual suspense, after what we have suffered
already, would be heartbreaking. You are right about the hopelessness
of going to Limmeridge. I wish I could feel sure that you are right
also in determining to try that last chance with the Count. IS it a
chance at all?"

"Beyond a doubt, Yes. It is the chance of recovering the lost date of
Laura's journey to London. Without returning to the reasons I gave you
some time since, I am still as firmly persuaded as ever that there is a
discrepancy between the date of that journey and the date on the
certificate of death. There lies the weak point of the whole
conspiracy--it crumbles to pieces if we attack it in tha