CHAPTER IX

So ended my eventful first day at Limeridge House.

Miss Halcombe and I kept our secret.

After the discovery of the likeness, no fresh light seemed destined to break over the

mystery of the woman in white.

At the first safe opportunity, Miss Halcombe cautiously let her half-sister to speak of their

mother, of old times, and of Anne Catholic.

Miss Fairly's recollections of the little scholar at Limeridge were, however, only of the

most vague and general kind.

She remembered the likeness between herself and her mother's favorite pupil, as something

which had been supposed to exist in past times.

But she did not refer to the gift of the white dresses, or to the singular form of words

in which the child had artlessly expressed her gratitude for them.

She remembered that Anne had remained at Limeridge for a few months only, and had been

left it to go back to her home in Hampshire.

But she could not say whether the mother and daughter had ever returned, or had ever been

heard of afterwards.

No further search on Miss Halcombe's part, through the few letters of Mrs. Fairly's

writing which she had left on red, assisted in clearing up the uncertainties still left

to perplex us.

We had identified the unhappy woman who might met in the night time with Anne Catholic.

We had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably defective condition

...