.«
    She asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory, or
calling them over in her sleep.
    »We are to meet as usual?«
    »Precisely as usual, if you please.«
    »And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?«
    »As you have done so many years. I should not have made that reference
myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your secret can be no
heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no better than it was. I know it
certainly, but I believe we have never wholly trusted each other.«
    She stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time, before
asking:
    »Is there anything more to be said to-night?«
    »Why,« Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically, as he softly rubs his hands, »I
should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my arrangements, Lady
Dedlock.«
    »You may be assured of it.«
    »Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business
precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any
communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I have expressly
stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's feelings and honour, and the
family reputation. I should have been happy to have made Lady Dedlock a
prominent consideration, too, if the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately
it does not.«
    »I can attest your fidelity, sir.«
    Both before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length moves,
and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence, towards the door. Mr.
Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he would have done yesterday, or as
he would have done ten years ago, and makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes
out. It is not an ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it
goes into the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very slight
one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But, as he reflects when he is left alone,
the woman has been putting no common constraint upon herself.
    He would know it all the better, if he saw the woman pacing her own rooms
with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands clasped behind
her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would think so all the more, if
he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down for hours, without fatigue,