t girl; a risk of fatally shaking Arnold's place in Blanche's
estimation; a scandal at the inn, in the disgrace of which the others
would be involved with herself--this was the price at which she must
speak, if she followed her first impulse, and said, in so many words,
"Arnold is here."

It was not to be thought of. Cost what it might in present
wretchedness--end how it might, if the deception was discovered in the
future--Blanche must be kept in ignorance of the truth, Arnold must be
kept in hiding until she had gone.

Anne opened the door for the second time, and went in.

The business of the toilet was standing still. Blanche was in
confidential communication with Mrs. Inchbare. At the moment when Anne
entered the room she was eagerly questioning the landlady about her
friend's "invisible husband"--she was just saying, "Do tell me! what is
he like?"

The capacity for accurate observation is a capacity so uncommon, and is
so seldom associated, even where it does exist, with the equally rare
gift of accurately describing the thing or the person observed, that
Anne's dread of the consequences if Mrs. Inchbare was allowed time
to comply with Blanches request, was, in all probability, a dread
misplaced. Right or wrong, however, the alarm that she felt hurried
her into taking measures for dismissing the landlady on the spot. "We
mustn't keep you from your occupations any longer," she said to Mrs.
Inchbare. "I will give Miss Lundie all the help she needs."

Barred from advancing in one direction, Blanche's curiosity turned back,
and tried in another. She boldly addressed herself to Anne.

"I _must_ know something about him," she said. "Is he shy before
strangers? I heard you whispering with him on the other side of the
door. Are you jealous, Anne? Are you afraid I shall fascinate him in
this dress?"

Blanche, in Mrs. Inchbare's best gown--an ancient and high-waisted
silk garment, of the hue called "bottle-green," pinned up in front, and
trailing far behind her--with a short, orange-colored shawl over her
shoulders, and a towel tied turban fashion round her head, to dry her
wet hair, looked at once the strangest and the prettiest human anomaly
that ever was seen. "For heaven's sake," she said, gayly, "don't tell
your husband I am in Mrs. Inchbare's clothes! I want to appear suddenly,
without a word to warn him of what a figure I am! I should have nothing
left to wish for in this world," she added, "if Arnold could o