ing--and my mother's friends will help me,
for her sake."

So, in the new life that she was marking out, was she now unconsciously
reflecting in herself the life of her mother before her. Here was the
mother's career as a public singer, chosen (in spite of all efforts to
prevent it) by the child! Here (though with other motives, and under
other circumstances) was the mother's irregular marriage in Ireland,
on the point of being followed by the daughter's irregular marriage in
Scotland! And here, stranger still, was the man who was answerable for
it--the son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish marriage, and
had shown the way by which her mother was thrown on the world! "My Anne
is my second self. She is not called by her father's name; she is called
by mine. She is Anne Silvester as I was. Will she end like Me?"--The
answer to those words--the last words that had trembled on the dying
mother's lips--was coming fast. Through the chances and changes of many
years, the future was pressing near--and Anne Silvester stood on the
brink of it.

"Well?" she resumed. "Are you at the end of your objections? Can you
give me a plain answer at last?"

No! He had another objection ready as the words passed her lips.

"Suppose the witnesses at the inn happen to know me?" he said. "Suppose
it comes to my father's ears in that way?"

"Suppose you drive me to my death?" she retorted, starting to her feet.
"Your father shall know the truth, in that case--I swear it!"

He rose, on his side, and drew back from her. She followed him up. There
was a clapping of hands, at the same moment, on the lawn. Somebody had
evidently made a brilliant stroke which promised to decide the game.
There was no security now that Blanche might not return again. There
was every prospect, the game being over, that Lady Lundie would be free.
Anne brought the interview to its crisis, without wasting a moment more.

"Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn," she said. "You have bargained for a private
marriage, and I have consented. Are you, or are you not, ready to marry
me on your own terms?"

"Give me a minute to think!"

"Not an instant. Once for all, is it Yes, or No?"

He couldn't say "Yes," even then. But he said what was equivalent to it.
He asked, savagely, "Where is the inn?"

She put her arm in his, and whispered, rapidly, "Pass the road on the
right that leads to the railway. Follow the path over the moor, and the
sheep-track up the hill. The first h