The Woman in White: The Third Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

For a while, after his marriage to Laura, Walter is so happy and distracted that he forgets about Count Fosco. However, one night he sees Laura crying in her sleep and knows that she is dreaming about her time at Blackwater. He resolves to finish his investigations and seek justice for the Count.

Walter reviews the evidence he has and cannot find much out about Count Fosco’s background. He remembers a part in Marian’s diary in which she says that the Count often receives foreign letters with “official” stamps on them and thinks that he may be a “political exile.” He also remembers Laura calling the Count “a spy” and—although Laura did not mean this literally—Walter wonders if she may be right, that the Count is a political spy.

It is the year of the Great Exhibition and many foreigners are traveling to London to visit it. Walter knows that there are many political exiles among these people, and he thinks that Count Fosco may be a powerful, high ranking spy who works for the Italian government. Considering this, Walter decides to speak to his friend Professor Pesca, who is also Italian and may know something of the Count’s political position.

Walter notes here that he has not included everything in his narrative so far and that, just because he has not written of Pesca, does not mean he has not seen him often. He also notes that he has seen his mother and sister but did not write about these events at the time. He has been to tell them of his marriage to Laura but, unfortunately, they believe that he has been tricked by an imposter and that Laura is really Anne Catherick. Walter will not see them now until they accept his wife for who she is.

Pesca, however, has been a good friend and Walter has seen a lot of him. Before he approaches Pesca, Walter decides to spy on Count Fosco, whom he has never seen or met in person. He waits outside the Count’s house and overhears him singing to his birds; a sound which he recognizes from the descriptions in Marian’s diary. The Count then leaves the house and Walter follows him. He sees the Count buy a tart from a bakery and then give it to an organ grinder’s monkey who looks starved on the street. Walter tails Count Fosco to an opera house and sees the Count buy a ticket for a show that evening. When the Count is gone, Walter buys two tickets and races away to find Pesca.