y be--not
Geoffrey!"

Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room--with her cap-ribb ons flying,
her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder than ever.

"Eh, mistress!" she said to Anne. "Wha do ye think has driven here to
see ye, from Windygates Hoose, and been owertaken in the storm?"

Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question: "Who is it?"

"Wha is't?" repeated Mrs. Inchbare. "It's joost the bonny young
leddy--Miss Blanche hersel'."

An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The landlady set it down
to the lightning, which flashed into the room again at the same moment.

"Eh, mistress! ye'll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than to skirl at a
flash o' lightning, that gait! Here she is, the bonny birdie!" exclaimed
Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out into the passage again.

Blanche's voice reached them, calling for Anne.

Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. "Go!" she whispered.
The next instant she was at the mantle-piece, and had blown out both the
candles.

Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and showed
Blanche's figure standing at the door.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

BLANCHE.

MRS. INCHBARE was the first person who acted in the emergency. She
called for lights; and sternly rebuked the house-maid, who brought them,
for not having closed the house door. "Ye feckless ne'er-do-weel!" cried
the landlady; "the wind's blawn the candles oot."

The woman declared (with perfect truth) that the door had been closed.
An awkward dispute might have ensued if Blanche had not diverted Mrs.
Inchbare's attention to herself. The appearance of the lights disclosed
her, wet through with her arms round Anne's neck. Mrs. Inchbare
digressed at once to the pressing question of changing the young lady's
clothes, and gave Anne the opportunity of looking round her, unobserved.
Arnold had made his escape before the candles had been brought in.

In the mean time Blanche's attention was absorbed in her own dripping
skirts.

"Good gracious! I'm absolutely distilling rain from every part of me.
And I'm making you, Anne, as wet as I am! Lend me some dry things. You
can't? Mrs. Inchbare, what does your experience suggest? Which had I
better do? Go to bed while my clothes are being dried? or borrow from
your wardrobe--though you _are_ a head and shoulders taller than I am?"

Mrs. Inchbare instantly bustled out to fetch the choicest garments
that her wardrobe could produce. The moment t