It was possible that a future opportunity of putting the
question might not easily offer, so I risked asking it on our way
back to the house.
"Now that you are kind enough to tell me we have understood each
other, Miss Halcombe," I said, "now that you are sure of my
gratitude for your forbearance and my obedience to your wishes,
may I venture to ask who"--(I hesitated--I had forced myself to
think of him, but it was harder still to speak of him, as her
promised husband)--"who the gentleman engaged to Miss Fairlie is?"
Her mind was evidently occupied with the message she had received
from her sister. She answered in a hasty, absent way--
"A gentleman of large property in Hampshire."
Hampshire! Anne Catherick's native place. Again, and yet again,
the woman in white. There WAS a fatality in it.
"And his name?" I said, as quietly and indifferently as I could.
"Sir Percival Glyde."
SIR--Sir Percival! Anne Catherick's question--that suspicious
question about the men of the rank of Baronet whom I might happen
to know--had hardly been dismissed from my mind by Miss Halcombe's
return to me in the summer-house, before it was recalled again by
her own answer. I stopped suddenly, and looked at her.
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