te possible. Private marriages were dangerous things (he
said)--especially in Scotland. He asked me if they had been married in
Scotland. I couldn't tell him--I only said, 'Suppose they were? What
then?' 'It's barely possible, in that case,' says Sir Patrick, 'that
Miss Silvester may be feeling uneasy about her marriage. She may even
have reason--or may think she has reason--to doubt whether it is a
marriage at all.'"

Arnold started, and looked round at Geoffrey still sitting at the
writing-table with his back turned on them. Utterly as Blanche and Sir
Patrick were mistaken in their estimate of Anne's position at Craig
Fernie, they had drifted, nevertheless, into discussing the very
question in which Geoffrey and Miss Silvester were interested--the
question of marriage in Scotland. It was impossible in Blanche's
presence to tell Geoffrey that he might do well to listen to Sir
Patrick's opinion, even at second-hand. Perhaps the words had found
their way to him? perhaps he was listening already, of his own accord?

(He _was_ listening. Blanche's last words had found their way to him,
while he was pondering over his half-finished letter to his brother. He
waited to hear more--without moving, and with the pen suspended in his
hand.)

Blanche proceeded, absently winding her fingers in and out of Arnold's
hair as he sat at her feet:

"It flashed on me instantly that Sir Patrick had discovered the
truth. Of course I told him so. He laughed, and said I mustn't jump at
conclusions We were guessing quite in the dark; and all the distressing
things I had noticed at the inn might admit of some totally different
explanation. He would have gone on splitting straws in that provoking
way the whole morning if I hadn't stopped him. I was strictly logical.
I said _I_ had seen Anne, and _he_ hadn't--and that made all the
difference. I said, 'Every thing that puzzled and frightened me in the
poor darling is accounted for now. The law must, and shall, reach
that man, uncle--and I'll pay for it!' I was so much in earnest that
I believe I cried a little. What do you think the dear old man did? He
took me on his knee and gave me a kiss; and he said, in the nicest way,
that he would adopt my view, for the present, if I would promise not to
cry any more; and--wait! the cream of it is to come!--that he would put
the view in quite a new light to me as soon as I was composed again. You
may imagine how soon I dried my eyes, and what a picture of