What do you think of the programme? Can you
reconcile yourself to our quiet, regular life? or do you mean to
be restless, and secretly thirst for change and adventure, in the
humdrum atmosphere of Limmeridge House?"
She had run on thus far, in her gracefully bantering way, with no
other interruptions on my part than the unimportant replies which
politeness required of me. The turn of the expression, however,
in her last question, or rather the one chance word, "adventure,"
lightly as it fell from her lips, recalled my thoughts to my
meeting with the woman in white, and urged me to discover the
connection which the stranger's own reference to Mrs. Fairlie
informed me must once have existed between the nameless fugitive
from the Asylum, and the former mistress of Limmeridge House.
"Even if I were the most restless of mankind," I said, "I should
be in no danger of thirsting after adventures for some time to
come. The very night before I arrived at this house, I met with
an adventure; and the wonder and excitement of it, I can assure
you, Miss Halcombe, will last me for the whole term of my stay in
Cumberland, if not for a much longer period."
"You don't say so, Mr. Hartright! May I hear it?"
"You have a claim to hear it.
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