nly see
me now!"

Looking in the glass, she noticed Anne's face reflected behind her, and
started at the sight of it.

"What _is_ the matter?" she asked. "Your face frightens me."

It was useless to prolong the pain of the inevitable misunderstanding
between them. The one course to take was to silence all further
inquiries then and there. Strongly as she felt this, Anne's inbred
loyalty to Blanche still shrank from deceiving her to her face. "I might
write it," she thought. "I can't say it, with Arnold Brinkworth in the
same house with her!" Write it? As she reconsidered the word, a sudden
idea struck her. She opened the bedroom door, and led the way back into
the sitting-room.

"Gone again!" exclaimed Blanche, looking uneasily round the empty room.
"Anne! there's something so strange in all this, that I neither can, nor
will, put up with your silence any longer. It's not just, it's not kind,
to shut me out of your confidence, after we have lived together like
sisters all our lives!"

Anne sighed bitterly, and kissed her on the forehead. "You shall know
all I can tell you--all I _dare_ tell you," she said, gently. "Don't
reproach me. It hurts me more than you think."

She turned away to the side table, and came back with a letter in her
hand. "Read that," she said, and handed it to Blanche.

Blanche saw her own name, on the address, in the handwriting of Anne.

"What does this mean?" she asked.

"I wrote to you, after Sir Patrick had left me," Anne replied. "I meant
you to have received my letter to-morrow, in time to prevent any little
imprudence into which your anxiety might hurry you. All that I _can_
say to you is said there. Spare me the distress of speaking. Read it,
Blanche."

Blanche still held the letter, unopened.

"A letter from you to me! when we are both together, and both alone
in the same room! It's worse than formal, Anne! It's as if there was a
quarrel between us. Why should it distress you to speak to me?"

Anne's eyes dropped to the ground. She pointed to the letter for the
second time.

Blanche broke the seal.

She passed rapidly over the opening sentences, and devoted all her
attention to the second paragraph.

"And now, my love, you will expect me to atone for the surprise and
distress that I have caused you, by explaining what my situation really
is, and by telling you all my plans for the future. Dearest Blanche!
don't think me untrue to the affection we bear toward each other