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When the half hour had passed, I returned home. After a brief explanation to Laura and Marian, I hurried back to St John's Wood to find the cab-driver whom the Count had hired to collect Laura at the station. He wrote me a statement, which he and a witness signed, saying that on 26th July 1850 he had driven a Count Fosco to the railway station where they had collected a Lady Glyde. He remembered Lady Glyde's name, he said, from the labels on her luggage.

Early the next morning Laura, Marian, Mr Kyrle and I took the train to Limmeridge. Laura and Marian stayed at first in a hotel while Mr Kyrle and I went to the house to deal with Mr Fairlie. He complained like a child, saying how was he to know his niece was alive when he was told she was dead? Between us, the lawyer and I made him sign letters calling all those who had attended the false funeral to come to the house the next day.

Then I went to Mr Kyrle's office and presented him with the proof of Laura's identity -- the letter from Sir Percival, the statement by the cab-driver, the confession by the Count, and the death certificate. Amazed, he congratulated me, and agreed to accompany us to Limmeridge the next day, where I intended to have Laura publicly received and recognized.

"Are you all agreed that this is the Laura Fairlie you knew?"

"There she is, alive and well -- God bless her!" It was an old man at the back of the room who began it, and in an instant everybody was shouting and cheering together.

Later, in the churchyard, we watched a stone worker remove Laura's name from the gravestone. In its place he put this:

As I led Laura into her childhood home the following morning, there was a murmur of surprise and interest from the waiting crowd of villagers and neighbours. The business was soon done. I read out the story of the plot against Laura, and Mr Kyrle announced that everything I had said was proved by the strongest evidence. I put my arm around Laura, raised her up, and called to the crowd:

ANNE CATHERICK

25TH JULY 1850

We returned to London the following day, happy in the thought that the long struggle was now over.

Several days later Pesca came to see me, and asked for a quiet word in my ear. He had just returned from Paris.

"I have news for you, my friend," he said. "You need not worry any more about the man at the opera. His body was found in the river Seine yesterday and now lies in the morgue in Paris. He was killed by knife wounds to the heart."

"A man," I said. "What kind of man?"

Pesca hesitated. "A man brought me some information," he said. "I had to see the body, and send a report about it."

"I saw the body with my own eyes. He was wearing a French workman's clothes, and had a different name, of course, but he was the fat man we saw at the opera that night. No question."

"But how do you know this?" I asked.

"A stranger," said Pesca. "I didn't know him. A man with a scar on his left cheek." He saw the understanding in my face, and held up his hand. "No more questions, my friend. Please!"

"Count Fosco is dead?" I said, amazed. "Are you sure?"

We never spoke about it again, but I think Pesca was telling me that the Brotherhood had taken their revenge. And so Count Fosco, that extraordinary, evil man, passed from this world.

The following year our first child was born -- a son. Six months later my newspaper sent me to Ireland and, when I returned, I found a note from my wife saying she and Marian and little Walter had gone to Limmeridge House. She begged me to follow as soon as possible. Very surprised, I caught the next train. When I got there, Marian and Laura told me Mr Fairlie was dead and that Mr Kyrle had advised them to go to Limmeridge House.

So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have written everything. Marian was the good friend of our lives -- let Marian end our story.

Laura came close to me and I half realized some great change was happening in our lives.

"Do you know who this is, Walter?" Marian asked, holding up my little son, with tears of happiness in her eyes. "This is the boy who will one day inherit Limmeridge House."