unconscious appeal, so touching and so awful in the
sacredness of her sleep, ran through me like fire. The next day was
the day we came back to London--the day when my resolution returned to
me with tenfold strength.

The first necessity was to know something of the man. Thus far, the
true story of his life was an impenetrable mystery to me.

I began with such scanty sources of information as were at my own
disposal. The important narrative written by Mr. Frederick Fairlie
(which Marian had obtained by following the directions I had given to
her in the winter) proved to be of no service to the special object
with which I now looked at it. While reading it I reconsidered the
disclosure revealed to me by Mrs. Clements of the series of deceptions
which had brought Anne Catherick to London, and which had there devoted
her to the interests of the conspiracy. Here, again, the Count had not
openly committed himself--here, again, he was, to all practical
purpose, out of my reach.

I next returned to Marian's journal at Blackwater Park. At my request
she read to me again a passage which referred to her past curiosity
about the Count, and to the few particulars which she had discovered
relating to him.

The passage to which I allude occurs in that part of her journal which
delineates his character and his personal appearance. She describes
him as "not having crossed the frontiers of his native country for
years past"--as "anxious to know if any Italian gentlemen were settled
in the nearest town to Blackwater Park"--as "receiving letters with all
sorts of odd stamps on them, and one with a large official-looking seal
on it." She is inclined to consider that his long absence from his
native country may be accounted for by assuming that he is a political
exile. But she is, on the other hand, unable to reconcile this idea
with the reception of the letter from abroad bearing "the large
official-looking seal"--letters from the Continent addressed to
political exiles being usually the last to court attention from foreign
post-offices in that way.

The considerations thus presented to me in the diary, joined to certain
surmises of my own that grew out of them, suggested a conclusion which
I wondered I had not arrived at before. I now said to myself--what
Laura had once said to Marian at Blackwater Park, what Madame Fosco had
overheard by listening at the door--the Count is a spy!

Laura had applied the word to him at haza