The Woman in White

Chapter 9

June 19th.--Once safely shut into my own room, I opened these

pages, and prepared to go on with that part of the day's record

which was still left to write.

For ten minutes or more I sat idle, with the pen in my hand,

thinking over the events of the last twelve hours. When I at last

addressed myself to my task, I found a difficulty in proceeding

with it which I had never experienced before. In spite of my

efforts to fix my thoughts on the matter in hand, they wandered

away with the strangest persistency in the one direction of Sir

Percival and the Count, and all the interest which I tried to

concentrate on my journal centred instead in that private

interview between them which had been put off all through the day,

and which was now to take place in the silence and solitude of the

night.

In this perverse state of my mind, the recollection of what had

passed since the morning would not come back to me, and there was

no resource but to close my journal and to get away from it for a

little while.

I opened the door which led from my bedroom into my sitting-room,

and having passed through, pulled it to again, to prevent any

accident in case of draught with the candle left on the dressing-

table. My sitting-room window was wide open, and I leaned out

listlessly to look at the night.

It was dark and quiet. Neither moon nor stars were visible.

There was a smell like rain in the still, heavy air, and I put my

hand out of window. No. The rain was only threatening, it had

not come yet.

I remained leaning on the window-sill for nearly a quarter of an

hour, looking out absently into the black darkness, and hearing

nothing, except now and then the voices of the servants, or the

distant sound of a closing door, in the lower part of the house.

Just as I was turning away wearily from the window to go back to

the bedroom and make a second attempt to complete the unfinished

entry in my journal, I smelt the odour of tobacco-smoke stealing

towards me on the heavy night air. The next moment I saw a tiny

red spark advancing from the farther end of the house in the pitch

darkness. I heard no footsteps, and I could see nothing but the

spark. It travelled along in the night, passed the window at

which I was standing, and stopped opposite my bedroom window,

inside which I had left the light burning on the dressing-table.

The spark remained stationary for a moment, then moved back again

in the direction from which it had advanced. As I followed its

progress I saw a second red spark, larger than the first,

approaching from the distance. The two met together in the

darkness. Remembering who smoked cigarettes and who smoked

cigars, I inferred immediately that the Count had come out first

to look and listen under my window, and that Sir Percival had

afterwards joined him. They must both have been walking on the

lawn--or I should certainly have heard Sir Percival's heavy

footfall, though the Count's soft step might have escaped me, even

on the gravel walk.

"It shows she is not in bed yet. She is sharp enough to suspect

something, and bold enough to come downstairs and listen, if she

can get the chance. Patience, Percival--patience."

"I shall talk of something else presently. My good friend, you

are on the edge of your domestic precipice, and if I let you give

the women one other chance, on my sacred word of honour they will

push you over it!"

"We will come to our explanations, Percival, when the light is out

of that window, and when I have had one little look at the rooms

on each side of the library, and a peep at the staircase as well."

They slowly moved away, and the rest of the conversation between

them (which had been conducted throughout in the same low tones)

ceased to be audible. It was no matter. I had heard enough to

determine me on justifying the Count's opinion of my sharpness and

my courage. Before the red sparks were out of sight in the

darkness I had made up my mind that there should be a listener

when those two men sat down to their talk--and that the listener,

in spite of all the Count's precautions to the contrary, should be

myself. I wanted but one motive to sanction the act to my own

conscience, and to give me courage enough for performing it--and

that motive I had. Laura's honour, Laura's happiness--Laura's

life itself--might depend on my quick ears and my faithful memory

to-night.

I had heard the Count say that he meant to examine the rooms on

each side of the library, and the staircase as well, before he

entered on any explanation with Sir Percival. This expression of

his intentions was necessarily sufficient to inform me that the

library was the room in which he proposed that the conversation

should take place. The one moment of time which was long enough

to bring me to that conclusion was also the moment which showed me

a means of baffling his precautions--or, in other words, of

hearing what he and Sir Percival said to each other, without the

risk of descending at all into the lower regions of the house.

In speaking of the rooms on the ground floor I have mentioned

incidentally the verandah outside them, on which they all opened

by means of French windows, extending from the cornice to the

floor. The top of this verandah was flat, the rain-water being

carried off from it by pipes into tanks which helped to supply the

house. On the narrow leaden roof, which ran along past the

bedrooms, and which was rather less, I should think, than three

feet below the sills of the window, a row of flower-pots was

ranged, with wide intervals between each pot--the whole being

protected from falling in high winds by an ornamental iron railing

along the edge of the roof.

The plan which had now occurred to me was to get out at my

sitting-room window on to this roof, to creep along noiselessly

till I reached that part of it which was immediately over the

library window, and to crouch down between the flower-pots, with

my ear against the outer railing. If Sir Percival and the Count

sat and smoked to-night, as I had seen them sitting and smoking

many nights before, with their chairs close at the open window,

and their feet stretched on the zinc garden seats which were

placed under the verandah, every word they said to each other

above a whisper (and no long conversation, as we all know by

experience, can be carried on IN a whisper) must inevitably reach

my ears. If, on the other hand, they chose to-night to sit far

back inside the room, then the chances were that I should hear

little or nothing--and in that case, I must run the far more

serious risk of trying to outwit them downstairs.

Strongly as I was fortified in my resolution by the desperate

nature of our situation, I hoped most fervently that I might

escape this last emergency. My courage was only a woman's courage

after all, and it was very near to failing me when I thought of

trusting myself on the ground floor, at the dead of night, within

reach of Sir Percival and the Count.

A complete change in my dress was imperatively necessary for many

reasons. I took off my silk gown to begin with, because the

slightest noise from it on that still night might have betrayed

me. I next removed the white and cumbersome parts of my

underclothing, and replaced them by a petticoat of dark flannel.

Over this I put my black travelling cloak, and pulled the hood on

to my head. In my ordinary evening costume I took up the room of

three men at least. In my present dress, when it was held close

about me, no man could have passed through the narrowest spaces

more easily than I. The little breadth left on the roof of the

verandah, between the flower-pots on one side and the wall and the

windows of the house on the other, made this a serious

consideration. If I knocked anything down, if I made the least

noise, who could say what the consequences might be?

I only waited to put the matches near the candle before I

extinguished it, and groped my way back into the sitting-room, I

locked that door, as I had locked my bedroom door--then quietly

got out of the window, and cautiously set my feet on the leaden

roof of the verandah.

My two rooms were at the inner extremity of the new wing of the

house in which we all lived, and I had five windows to pass before

I could reach the position it was necessary to take up immediately

over the library. The first window belonged to a spare room which

was empty. The second and third windows belonged to Laura's room.

The fourth window belonged to Sir Percival's room. The fifth

belonged to the Countess's room. The others, by which it was not

necessary for me to pass, were the windows of the Count's

dressing-room, of the bath-room, and of the second empty spare

room.

No sound reached my ears--the black blinding darkness of the night

was all round me when I first stood on the verandah, except at

that part of it which Madame Fosco's window over-looked. There,

at the very place above the library to which my course was

directed--there I saw a gleam of light! The Countess was not yet

in bed.

It was too late to draw back--it was no time to wait. I

determined to go on at all hazards, and trust for security to my

own caution and to the darkness of the night. "For Laura's sake!"

I thought to myself, as I took the first step forward on the roof,

with one hand holding my cloak close round me, and the other

groping against the wall of the house. It was better to brush

close by the wall than to risk striking my feet against the

flower-pots within a few inches of me, on the other side.

I passed the dark window of the spare room, trying the leaden roof

at each step with my foot before I risked resting my weight on it.

I passed the dark windows of Laura's room ("God bless her and keep

her to-night!"). I passed the dark window of Sir Percival's room.

Then I waited a moment, knelt down with my hands to support me,

and so crept to my position, under the protection of the low wall

between the bottom of the lighted window and the verandah roof.

When I ventured to look up at the window itself I found that the

top of it only was open, and that the blind inside was drawn down.

While I was looking I saw the shadow of Madame Fosco pass across

the white field of the blind--then pass slowly back again. Thus

far she could not have heard me, or the shadow would surely have

stopped at the blind, even if she had wanted courage enough to

open the window and look out?

I placed myself sideways against the railing of the verandah--

first ascertaining, by touching them, the position of the flower-

pots on either side of me. There was room enough for me to sit

between them and no more. The sweet-scented leaves of the flower

on my left hand just brushed my cheek as I lightly rested my head

against the railing.

The first sounds that reached me from below were caused by the

opening or closing (most probably the latter) of three doors in

succession--the doors, no doubt, leading into the hall and into

the rooms on each side of the library, which the Count had pledged

himself to examine. The first object that I saw was the red spark

again travelling out into the night from under the verandah,

moving away towards my window, waiting a moment, and then

returning to the place from which it had set out.

His exclamation was followed by the scraping of the garden chairs

on the tiled pavement under the verandah--the welcome sound which

told me they were going to sit close at the window as usual. So

far the chance was mine. The clock in the turret struck the

quarter to twelve as they settled themselves in their chairs. I

heard Madame Fosco through the open window yawning, and saw her

shadow pass once more across the white field of the blind.

Meanwhile, Sir Percival and the Count began talking together

below, now and then dropping their voices a little lower than

usual, but never sinking them to a whisper. The strangeness and

peril of my situation, the dread, which I could not master, of

Madame Fosco's lighted window, made it difficult, almost

impossible, for me, at first, to keep my presence of mind, and to

fix my attention solely on the conversation beneath. For some

minutes I could only succeed in gathering the general substance of

it. I understood the Count to say that the one window alight was

his wife's, that the ground floor of the house was quite clear,

and that they might now speak to each other without fear of

accidents. Sir Percival merely answered by upbraiding his friend

with having unjustifiably slighted his wishes and neglected his

interests all through the day. The Count thereupon defended

himself by declaring that he had been beset by certain troubles

and anxieties which had absorbed all his attention, and that the

only safe time to come to an explanation was a time when they

could feel certain of being neither interrupted nor overheard.

"We are at a serious crisis in our affairs, Percival," he said,

"and if we are to decide on the future at all, we must decide

secretly to-night."

That sentence of the Count's was the first which my attention was

ready enough to master exactly as it was spoken. From this point,

with certain breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed

breathlessly on the conversation, and I followed it word for word.

"So I should suppose, from your behaviour for the last day or

two," returned the other coolly. "But wait a little. Before we

advance to what I do NOT know, let us be quite certain of what I

DO know. Let us first see if I am right about the time that is

past, before I make any proposal to you for the time that is to

come."

"Now listen, Percival. I will put our position plainly before

you, as I understand it, and you shall say if I am right or wrong.

You and I both came back to this house from the Continent with our

affairs very seriously embarrassed--"

"Cut it short! I wanted some thousands and you some hundreds, and

without the money we were both in a fair way to go to the dogs

together. There's the situation. Make what you can of it. Go

on."

"Well, Percival, in your own solid English words, you wanted some

thousands and I wanted some hundreds, and the only way of getting

them was for you to raise the money for your own necessity (with a

small margin beyond for my poor little hundreds) by the help of

your wife. What did I tell you about your wife on our way to

England?--and what did I tell you again when we had come here, and

when I had seen for myself the sort of woman Miss Halcombe was?"

"I said this: Human ingenuity, my friend, has hitherto only

discovered two ways in which a man can manage a woman. One way is

to knock her down--a method largely adopted by the brutal lower

orders of the people, but utterly abhorrent to the refined and

educated classes above them. The other way (much longer, much

more difficult, but in the end not less certain) is never to

accept a provocation at a woman's hands. It holds with animals,

it holds with children, and it holds with women, who are nothing

but children grown up. Quiet resolution is the one quality the

animals, the children, and the women all fail in. If they can

once shake this superior quality in their master, they get the

better of HIM. If they can never succeed in disturbing it, he

gets the better of THEM. I said to you, Remember that plain truth

when you want your wife to help you to the money. I said,

Remember it doubly and trebly in the presence of your wife's

sister, Miss Halcombe. Have you remembered it? Not once in all

the implications that have twisted themselves about us in this

house. Every provocation that your wife and her sister could

offer to you, you instantly accepted from them. Your mad temper

lost the signature to the deed, lost the ready money, set Miss

Halcombe writing to the lawyer for the first time."

It was well for me that the Count's revelation roused Sir

Percival's anger as it did. On hearing that I had been once more

discovered I started so that the railing against which I leaned

cracked again. Had he followed me to the inn? Did he infer that I

must have given my letters to Fanny when I told him I had none for

the post-bag. Even if it was so, how could he have examined the

letters when they had gone straight from my hand to the bosom of

the girl's dress?

"Thank your lucky star," I heard the Count say next, "that you

have me in the house to undo the harm as fast as you do it. Thank

your lucky star that I said No when you were mad enough to talk of

turning the key to-day on Miss Halcombe, as you turned it in your

mischievous folly on your wife. Where are your eyes? Can you look

at Miss Halcombe and not see that she has the foresight and the

resolution of a man? With that woman for my friend I would snap

these fingers of mine at the world. With that woman for my enemy,

I, with all my brains and experience--I, Fosco, cunning as the

devil himself, as you have told me a hundred times--I walk, in

your English phrase, upon egg-shells! And this grand creature--I

drink her health in my sugar-and-water--this grand creature, who

stands in the strength of her love and her courage, firm as a

rock, between us two and that poor, flimsy, pretty blonde wife of

yours--this magnificent woman, whom I admire with all my soul,

though I oppose her in your interests and in mine, you drive to

extremities as if she was no sharper and no bolder than the rest

of her s*x. Percival! Percival! you deserve to fail, and you HAVE

failed."

There was a pause. I write the villain's words about myself

because I mean to remember them--because I hope yet for the day

when I may speak out once for all in his presence, and cast them

back one by one in his teeth.

"Yes, yes, bully and bluster as much as you like," he said

sulkily; "the difficulty about the money is not the only

difficulty. You would be for taking strong measures with the

women yourself--if you knew as much as I do."

"We will come to that second difficulty all in good time,"

rejoined the Count. "You may confuse yourself, Percival, as much

as you please, but you shall not confuse me. Let the question of

the money be settled first. Have I convinced your obstinacy? have

I shown you that your temper will not let you help yourself?--Or

must I go back, and (as you put it in your dear straightforward

English) bully and bluster a little more?"

"Is it? Bah! This is what is to be done: You give up all direction

in the business from to-night--you leave it for the future in my

hands only. I am talking to a Practical British man--ha? Well,

Practical, will that do for you?"

"A few questions, Percival, to begin with. I must wait a little

yet, to let circumstances guide me, and I must know, in every

possible way, what those circumstances are likely to be. There is

no time to lose. I have told you already that Miss Halcombe has

written to the lawyer to-day for the second time."

"If I told you, Percival, we should only come back at the end to

where we are now. Enough that I have found it out--and the

finding has caused that trouble and anxiety which made me so

inaccessible to you all through to-day. Now, to refresh my memory

about your affairs--it is some time since I talked them over with

you. The money has been raised, in the absence of your wife's

signature, by means of bills at three months--raised at a cost

that makes my poverty-stricken foreign hair stand on end to think

of it! When the bills are due, is there really and truly no

earthly way of paying them but by the help of your wife?"

"Of course not. If he was married, and had a son, Lady Glyde

would not be next heir to the property. I'll tell you what he is.

He's a maudlin, twaddling, selfish fool, and bores everybody who

comes near him about the state of his health."

"Men of that sort, Percival, live long, and marry malevolently

when you least expect it. I don't give you much, my friend, for

your chance of the three thousand a year. Is there nothing more

that comes to you from your wife?"

There was another pause. The Count moved from the

verandah to the gravel walk outside. I knew that he had moved by

his voice. "The rain has come at last," I heard him say. It had

come. The state of my cloak showed that it had been falling

thickly for some little time.

They were silent once more. As their voices ceased Madame Fosco's

shadow darkened the blind again. Instead of passing this time, it

remained, for a moment, quite still. I saw her fingers steal

round the corner of the blind, and draw it on one side. The dim

white outline of her face, looking out straight over me, appeared

behind the window. I kept still, shrouded from head to foot in my

black cloak. The rain, which was fast wetting me, dripped over

the glass, blurred it, and prevented her from seeing anything.

"More rain!" I heard her say to herself. She dropped the blind,

and I breathed again freely.

"The REMOTE chance, Percival--the remote chance only. And you

want money, at once. In your position the gain is certain--the

loss doubtful."

"Speak for yourself as well as for me. Some of the money I want

has been borrowed for you. And if you come to gain, my wife's

death would be ten thousand pounds in your wife's pocket. Sharp

as you are, you seem to have conveniently forgotten Madame Fosco's

legacy. Don't look at me in that way! I won't have it! What with

your looks and your questions, upon my soul, you make my flesh

creep!"

"Your flesh? Does flesh mean conscience in English? speak of your

wife's death as I speak of a possibility. Why not? The

respectable lawyers who scribble-scrabble your deeds and your

wills look the deaths of living people in the face. Do lawyers

make your flesh creep? Why should I? It is my business to-night to

clear up your position beyond the possibility of mistake, and I

have now done it. Here is your position. If your wife lives, you

pay those bills with her signature to the parchment. If your wife

dies, you pay them with her death."

As he spoke the light in Madame Fosco's room was extinguished, and

the whole second floor of the house was now sunk in darkness.

"You have left the matter in my hands," retorted the Count, "and I

have more than two months before me to turn round in. Say no more

about it, if you please, for the present. When the bills are due,

you will see for yourself if my 'talk! talk!' is worth something,

or if it is not. And now, Percival, having done with the money

matters for to-night, I can place my attention at your disposal,

if you wish to consult me on that second difficulty which has

mixed itself up with our little embarrassments, and which has so

altered you for the worse, that I hardly know you again. Speak,

my friend--and pardon me if I shock your fiery national tastes by

mixing myself a second glass of sugar-and-water."

"It's very well to say speak," replied Sir Percival, in a far more

quiet and more polite tone than he had yet adopted, "but it's not

so easy to know how to begin."

"Shall I help you?" suggested the Count. "Shall I give this

private difficulty of yours a name? What if I call it--Anne

Catherick?"

"Look here, Fosco, you and I have known each other for a long

time, and if you have helped me out of one or two scrapes before

this, I have done the best I could to help you in return, as far

as money would go. We have made as many friendly sacrifices, on

both sides, as men could, but we have had our secrets from each

other, of course--haven't we?"

"You have had a secret from me, Percival. There is a skeleton in

your cupboard here at Blackwater Park that has peeped out in these

last few days at other people besides yourself."

"So! so! my face speaks the truth, then? What an immense

foundation of good there must be in the nature of a man who

arrives at my age, and whose face has not yet lost the habit of

speaking the truth!--Come, Glyde! let us be candid one with the

other. This secret of yours has sought me: I have not sought it.

Let us say I am curious--do you ask me, as your old friend, to

respect your secret, and to leave it, once for all, in your own

keeping?"

"I have had some experience, Fosco, of your roundabout ways, and I

am not so sure that you won't worm it out of me after all."

The chair below suddenly creaked again--I felt the trellis-work

pillar under me shake from top to bottom. The Count had started

to his feet, and had struck it with his hand in indignation.

"Percival! Percival!" he cried passionately, "do you know me no

better than that? Has all your experience shown you nothing of my

character yet? I am a man of the antique type! I am capable of the

most exalted acts of virtue--when I have the chance of performing

them. It has been the misfortune of my life that I have had few

chances. My conception of friendship is sublime! Is it my fault

that your skeleton has peeped out at me? Why do I confess my

curiosity? You poor superficial Englishman, it is to magnify my

own self-control. I could draw your secret out of you, if I

liked, as I draw this finger out of the palm of my hand--you know

I could! But you have appealed to my friendship, and the duties of

friendship are sacred to me. See! I trample my base curiosity

under my feet. My exalted sentiments lift me above it. Recognise

them, Percival! imitate them, Percival! Shake hands--I forgive

you."

"No!" he said. "When my friend has wounded me, I can pardon him

without apologies. Tell me, in plain words, do you want my help?"

A little stream of light travelled out under the verandah, and

fell over the gravel-walk. The Count had taken the lamp from the

inner part of the room to see his friend clearly by the light of

it.

"I showed you the letter to my wife that Anne Catherick hid in the

sand," Sir Percival continued. "There's no boasting in that

letter, Fosco--she DOES know the Secret."

"Two women in possession of your private mind--bad, bad, bad, my

friend! One question here, before we go any farther. The motive

of your shutting up the daughter in the asylum is now plain enough

to me, but the manner of her escape is not quite so clear. Do you

suspect the people in charge of her of closing their eyes

purposely, at the instance of some enemy who could afford to make

it worth their while?"

"No, she was the best-behaved patient they had--and, like fools,

they trusted her. She's just mad enough to be shut up, and just

sane enough to ruin me when she's at large--if you understand

that?"

"I do understand it. Now, Percival, come at once to the point,

and then I shall know what to do. Where is the danger of your

position at the present moment?"

"Anne Catherick is in this neighbourhood, and in communication

with Lady Glyde--there's the danger, plain enough. Who can read

the letter she hid in the sand, and not see that my wife is in

possession of the Secret, deny it as she may?"

"One moment, Percival. If Lady Glyde does know the Secret, she

must know also that it is a compromising secret for you. As your

wife, surely it is her interest to keep it?"

"Is it? I'm coming to that. It might be her interest if she cared

two straws about me. But I happen to be an encumbrance in the way

of another man. She was in love with him before she married me--

she's in love with him now--an infernal vagabond of a drawing-

master, named Hartright."

"My dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? They are all

in love with some other man. Who gets the first of a woman's

heart? In all my experience I have never yet met with the man who

was Number One. Number Two, sometimes. Number Three, Four, Five,

often. Number One, never! He exists, of course--but I have not

met with him."

"Wait! I haven't done yet. Who do you think helped Anne Catherick

to get the start, when the people from the mad-house were after

her? Hartright. Who do you think saw her again in Cumberland?

Hartright. Both times he spoke to her alone. Stop! don't

interrupt me. The scoundrel's as sweet on my wife as she is on

him. He knows the Secret, and she knows the Secret. Once let

them both get together again, and it's her interest and his

interest to turn their information against me."

"That for the virtue of Lady Glyde! I believe in nothing about her

but her money. Don't you see how the case stands? She might be

harmless enough by herself; but if she and that vagabond

Hartright----"

"Certain. I had him watched from the time he left Cumberland to

the time he sailed. Oh, I've been careful, I can tell you! Anne

Catherick lived with some people at a farm-house near Limmeridge.

I went there myself, after she had given me the slip, and made

sure that they knew nothing. I gave her mother a form of letter

to write to Miss Halcombe, exonerating me from any bad motive in

putting her under restraint. I've spent, I'm afraid to say how

much, in trying to trace her, and in spite of it all, she turns up

here and escapes me on my own property! How do I know who else may

see her, who else may speak to her? That prying scoundrel,

Hartright, may come back with-out my knowing it, and may make use

of her to-morrow----"

"Not he, Percival! While I am on the spot, and while that woman is

in the neighbourhood, I will answer for our laying hands on her

before Mr. Hartright--even if he does come back. I see! yes, yes,

I see! The finding of Anne Catherick is the first necessity--make

your mind easy about the rest. Your wife is here, under your

thumb--Miss Halcombe is inseparable from her, and is, therefore,

under your thumb also--and Mr. Hartright is out of the country.

This invisible Anne of yours is all we have to think of for the

present. You have made your inquiries?"

"I am glad to hear it, Percival, for your sake. Don't be

discouraged, my friend. Our money matters, as I told you, leave

me plenty of time to turn round in, and I may search for Anne

Catherick to-morrow to better purpose than you. One last question

before we go to bed."

"It is this. When I went to the boat-house to tell Lady Glyde

that the little difficulty of her signature was put off, accident

took me there in time to see a strange woman parting in a very

suspicious manner from your wife. But accident did not bring me

near enough to see this same woman's face plainly. I must know

how to recognise our invisible Anne. What is she like?"

"Fancy my wife, after a bad illness, with a touch of something

wrong in her head--and there is Anne Catherick for you," answered

Sir Percival.

"Perhaps at my own fancies, my good friend. Allow me my Italian

humour--do I not come of the illustrious nation which invented the

exhibition of Punch? Well, well, well, I shall know Anne Catherick

when I see her--and so enough for to-night. Make your mind easy,

Percival. Sleep, my son, the sleep of the just, and see what I

will do for you when daylight comes to help us both. I have my

projects and my plans here in my big head. You shall pay those

bills and find Anne Catherick--my sacred word of honour on it, but

you shall! Am I a friend to be treasured in the best corner of

your heart, or am I not? Am I worth those loans of money which

you so delicately reminded me of a little while since? Whatever

you do, never wound me in my sentiments any more. Recognise them,

Percival! imitate them, Percival! I forgive you again--I shake

hands again. Good-night!"

Not another word was spoken. I heard the Count close the library

door. I heard Sir Percival barring up the window-shutters. It

had been raining, raining all the time. I was cramped by my

position and chilled to the bones. When I first tried to move,

the effort was so painful to me that I was obliged to desist. I

tried a second time, and succeeded in rising to my knees on the

wet roof.

As I crept to the wall, and raised myself against it, I looked

back, and saw the window of the Count's dressing-room gleam into

light. My sinking courage flickered up in me again, and kept my

eyes fixed on his window, as I stole my way back, step by step,

past the wall of the house.

The clock struck the quarter after one, when I laid my hands on

the window-sill of my own room. I had seen nothing and heard

nothing which could lead me to suppose that my retreat had been

discovered.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.