s we walked
on. "What has happened in the schoolroom," she resumed, "has so
completely distracted my attention from the subject of the letter, that
I feel a little bewildered when I try to return to it. Must we give up
all idea of making any further inquiries, and wait to place the thing
in Mr. Gilmore's hands to-morrow?"

"By no means, Miss Halcombe. What has happened in the schoolroom
encourages me to persevere in the investigation."

"Why does it encourage you?"

"Because it strengthens a suspicion I felt when you gave me the letter
to read."

"I suppose you had your reasons, Mr. Hartright, for concealing that
suspicion from me till this moment?"

"I was afraid to encourage it in myself. I thought it was utterly
preposterous--I distrusted it as the result of some perversity in my
own imagination. But I can do so no longer. Not only the boy's own
answers to your questions, but even a chance expression that dropped
from the schoolmaster's lips in explaining his story, have forced the
idea back into my mind. Events may yet prove that idea to be a
delusion, Miss Halcombe; but the belief is strong in me, at this
moment, that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the
anonymous letter, are one and the same person."

She stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in the face.

"What person?"

"The schoolmaster unconsciously told you. When he spoke of the figure
that the boy saw in the churchyard he called it 'a woman in white.'"

"Not Anne Catherick?"

"Yes, Anne Catherick."

She put her hand through my arm and leaned on it heavily.

"I don't know why," she said in low tones, "but there is something in
this suspicion of yours that seems to startle and unnerve me. I
feel----" She stopped, and tried to laugh it off. "Mr. Hartright," she
went on, "I will show you the grave, and then go back at once to the
house. I had better not leave Laura too long alone. I had better go
back and sit with her."

We were close to the churchyard when she spoke. The church, a dreary
building of grey stone, was situated in a little valley, so as to be
sheltered from the bleak winds blowing over the moorland all round it.
The burial-ground advanced, from the side of the church, a little way
up the slope of the hill. It was surrounded by a rough, low stone
wall, and was bare and open to the sky, except at one extremity, where
a brook trickled down the stony hill-side, and a clump of dwarf trees
threw