companions on these occasions, and always to
occupy himself, when he is alone, in cutting new
walking-sticks for his own use. The mere act
of cutting and lopping, at hazard, appears to
please him. He has filled the house with walking
sticks of his own making, not one of which
he ever takes up for a second time. When they
have been once used, his interest in them is all
exhausted, and he thinks of nothing but going
on, and making more.

At the old boat-house, he joined us again. I
will put down the conversation that ensued,
when we were all settled in our places, exactly
as it passed. It is an important conversation,
so far as I am concerned, for it has seriously
disposed me to distrust the influence which
Count Fosco has exercised over my thoughts
and feelings, and to resist it, for the future, as
resolutely as I can.

The boat-house was large enough to hold us
all; but Sir Percival remained outside, trimming
the last new stick with his pocket-axe. We
three women found plenty of room on the large
seat. Laura took her work, and Madame Fosco
began her cigarettes. I, as usual, had nothing
to do. My hands always were, and always will
be, as awkward as a man's. The Count good-
humouredly took a stool, many sizes too small
for him, and balanced himself on it with his back
against the side of the shed, which creaked and
groaned under his weight. He put the pagoda
cage on his lap, and let out the mice to crawl
over him as usual. They are pretty, innocent-
looking little creatures; but the sight of them
creeping about a man's body is, for some reason,
not pleasant to me. It excites a strange,
responsive creeping in my own nerves; and
suggests hideous ideas of men dying in prison, with
the crawling creatures of the dungeon preying
on them undisturbed.

The morning was windy and cloudy; and the
rapid alternations of shadow and sunlight over
the waste of the lake, made the view look doubly
wild, weird, and gloomy.

"Some people call that picturesque," said
Sir Percival, pointing over the wide prospect
with his half-finished walking-stick. "I call it
a blot on a gentleman's property. In my great
grandfather's time, the lake flowed to this place.
Look at it now! It is not four feet deep
anywhere, and it is all puddles and pools. I wish
I could afford to drain it, and plant it all
over. My bailiff (a superstitious idiot) says
he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it,
like the Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco?
It looks just the place for a murder, doesn't it?"

"My good Percival!" remonstrated the
Count. "What is your solid English sense
thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide
the body; and there is sand everywhere to print
off the murderer's footsteps. It is, upon the
whole, the very worst place for a murder that I
ever set my eyes on."

"Humbug!" said Sir Percival, cutting away
fiercely at his stick. "You know what I mean.
The dreary scenery—the lonely situation. If
you choose to understand me, you can—if you
don't choose, I am not going to trouble myself
to explain my meaning."

"And why not," asked the Count, "when
your meaning can be explained by anybody in
two words? If a fool was going to commit a
murder, your lake is the first place he would
choose for it. If a wise man was going to commit
a murder, your lake is the last place he
would choose for it. Is that your meaning? If
it is, there is your explanation for you, ready
made. Take it Percival, with your good Fosco's
blessing."

Laura looked at the Count, with her dislike
for him appearing a little too plainly in her
face. He was so busy with his mice that he
did not notice her.

"I am sorry to hear the lake-view connected
with anything so horrible as the idea of murder,"
she said. "And if Count Fosco must divide
murderers into classes, I think he has been very
unfortunate in his choice of expressions. To
describe them as fools only, seems like treating
them with an indulgence to which they have no
claim. And to describe them as wise men,
sounds to me like a downright contradiction in
terms. I have always heard that truly wise men
are truly good men, and have a horror of crime."

"My dear lady," said the Count, "those are
admirable sentiments; and I have seen them
stated at the tops of copy-books." He lifted
one of the white mice in the palm of his hand,
and spoke to it in his whimsical way. "My
pretty little smooth white rascal," he said,
"here is a moral lesson for you. A truly wise
Mouse is a truly good Mouse. Mention that, if
you please, to your companions, and never gnaw
at the bars of your cage again as long as you live."

"It is easy to turn everything into ridicule,"
said Laura, resolutely; "but you will not find
it quite so easy, Count Fosco, to give me an
instance of a wise man who has been a great
criminal."

The Count shrugged his huge shoulders, and
smiled on Laura in the friendliest manner.

"Most true!" he said. "The fool's crime
is the crime that is found out; and the wise
man's crime is the crime that is not found out.
If I could give you an instance, it would not be
the instance of a wise man. Dear Lady Glyde,
your sound English common sense has been
too much for me. It is checkmate for me this
time, Miss Halcombe—ha?"

"Stand to your guns, Laura," sneered Sir
Percival, who had been listening in his place at the
door. "Tell him, next, that crimes cause their
own detection. There's another bit of copy-book
morality for you, Fosco. Crimes cause their
own detection. What infernal humbug!"

"I believe it to be true," said Laura,
quietly.

Sir Percival burst out laughing; so violently,
so outrageously, that he quite startled us all—
the Count more than any of us.

"I believe it, too," I said, coming to Laura's
rescue.

Sir Percival, who had been unaccountably
amused at his wife's remark, was, just as