said. "If that creature at the writing-table has
ears for any thing but rowing and racing, he mustn't hear this! Anne
may come to me privately to-day while you are all at luncheon. If she
doesn't come and if I don't hear from her, then the mystery of her
silence must be cleared up; and You must do it!"

"I!"

"Don't make difficulties! If you can't find your way to Craig Fernie, I
can help you. As for Anne, you know what a charming person she is, and
you know she will receive you perfectly, for my sake. I must and will
have some news of her. I can't break the laws of the household a second
time. Sir Patrick sympathizes, but he won't stir. Lady Lundie is a
bitter enemy. The servants are threatened with the loss of their places
if any one of them goes near Anne. There is nobody but you. And to Anne
you go to-morrow, if I don't see her or hear from her to-day!"

This to the man who had passed as Anne's husband at the inn, and who had
been forced into the most intimate knowledge of Anne's miserable secret!
Arnold rose to put Milton away, with the composure of sheer despair.
Any other secret he might, in the last resort, have confided to the
discretion of a third person. But a woman's secret--with a woman's
reputation depending on his keeping it--was not to be confided to any
body, under any stress of circumstances whatever. "If Geoffrey doesn't
get me out of _this,_," he thought, "I shall have no choice but to leave
Windygates to-morrow."

As he replaced the book on the shelf, Lady Lundie entered the library
from the garden.

"What are you doing here?" she said to her step-daughter.

"Improving my mind," replied Blanche. "Mr. Brinkworth and I have been
reading Milton."

"Can you condescend so far, after reading Milton all the morning, as to
help me with the invitations for the dinner next week?"

"If _you_ can condescend, Lady Lundie, after feeding the poultry all the
morning, I must be humility itself after only reading Milton!"

With that little interchange of the acid amenities of feminine
intercourse, step-mother and step-daughter withdrew to a writing-table,
to put the virtue of hospitality in practice together.

Arnold joined his friend at the other end of the library.

Geoffrey was sitting with his elbows on the desk, and his clenched fists
dug into his cheeks. Great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead,
and the fragments of a torn letter lay scattered all round him. He
exhibited symptoms of nervo