‘I mean to write first, Laura, to Mr Gilmore's partner, who has offered to help us in any fresh emergency. Little as I know of the law, I am certain that it can protect a woman from such treatment as that ruffian has inflicted on you today. I will go into no details about Anne Catherick, because I have no certain information to give. But the lawyer shall know of those bruises on your arm, and of the violence offered to you in this room -- he shall, before I rest tonight!'
‘But think of the exposure, Marian!'
‘I am calculating on the exposure. Sir Percival has more to dread from it than you have. The prospect of an exposure may bring him to terms when nothing else will.'
I rose as I spoke, but Laura entreated me not to leave her. ‘You will drive him to desperation,‘she said, ‘and increase our dangers tenfold.'
I felt the truth -- the disheartening truth -- of those words. But I could not bring myself plainly to acknowledge it to her. In our dreadful position there was no help and no hope for us but in risking the worst.
I said so in guarded terms. She sighed bitterly, but did not contest the matter. She only asked about the second letter that I had proposed writing.
To whom was it to be addressed?
‘To Mr Fairlie,' I said. ‘Your uncle is your nearest male relative, and the head of the family. He must and shall interfere.'
Laura shook her head sorrowfully.
‘Yes, yes,' I went on, ‘your uncle is a weak, selfish, worldly man, I know, but he is not Sir Percival Glyde, and he has no such friend about him as Count Fosco. I expect nothing from his kindness or his tenderness of feeling towards you or towards me, but he will do anything to pamper his own indolence, and to secure his own quiet. Let me only persuade him that his interference at this moment will save him inevitable trouble and wretchedness and responsibility hereafter, and he will bestir himself for his own sake. I know how to deal with him, Laura -- I have had some practice.'
‘If you could only prevail on him to let me go back to Limmeridge for a little while and stay there quietly with you, Marian, I could be almost as happy again as I was before I was married!'
Those words set me thinking in a new direction. Would it be possible to place Sir Percival between the two alternatives of either exposing himself to the scandal of legal interference on his wife's behalf, or of allowing her to be quietly separated from him for a time under pretext of a visit to her uncle's house? And could he, in that case, be reckoned on as likely to accept the last resource? It was doubtful -- more than doubtful. And yet, hopeless as the experiment seemed, surely it was worth trying. I resolved to try it in sheer despair of knowing what better to do.
‘Your uncle shall know the wish you have just expressed,' I said, ‘and I will ask the lawyer's advice on the subject as well. Good may come of it -- and will come of it, I hope.'
Saying that I rose again, and again Laura tried to make me resume my seat.
‘Don't leave me,' she said uneasily. ‘My desk is on that table. You can write here.'
It tried me to the quick to refuse her, even in her own interests. But we had been too long shut up alone together already. Our chance of seeing each other again might entirely depend on our not exciting any fresh suspicions.
It was full time to show myself, quietly and unconcernedly, among the wretches who were at that very moment, perhaps, thinking of us and talking of us downstairs. I explained the miserable necessity to Laura, and prevailed on her to recognise it as I did.
‘l will come back again, love, in an hour or less,' I said. ‘The worst is over for today. Keep yourself quiet and fear nothing.'
‘Is the key in the door, Marian? Can I lock it on the inside?'
‘Yes, here is the key. Lock the door, and open it to nobody until I come upstairs again.'
I kissed her and left her. It was a relief to me as I walked away to hear the key turned in the lock, and to know that the door was at her own command.