Part 51 (2/2)

”Yes. What is it?”

”Who are the gentlemen staying in the house?”

Blanche looked round at her again, in sudden astonishment and alarm.

A vague fear seized her that Anne's mind had given way under the heavy weight of trouble laid on it. Anne persisted in pressing her strange request.

”Run over their names, Blanche. I have a reason for wis.h.i.+ng to know who the gentlemen are who are staying in the house.”

Blanche repeated the names of Lady Lundie's guests, leaving to the last the guests who had arrived last.

”Two more came back this morning,” she went on. ”Arnold Brinkworth and that hateful friend of his, Mr. Delamayn.”

Anne's head sank back once more on the chair. She had found her way without exciting suspicion of the truth, to the one discovery which she had come to Windygates to make. He was in Scotland again, and he had only arrived from London that morning. There was barely time for him to have communicated with Craig Fernie before she left the inn--he, too, who hated letter-writing! The circ.u.mstances were all in his favor: there was no reason, there was really and truly no reason, so far, to believe that he had deserted her. The heart of the unhappy woman bounded in her bosom, under the first ray of hope that had warmed it for four days past. Under that sudden revulsion of feeling, her weakened frame shook from head to foot. Her face flushed deep for a moment--then turned deadly pale again. Blanche, anxiously watching her, saw the serious necessity for giving some restorative to her instantly.

”I am going to get you some wine--you will faint, Anne, if you don't take something. I shall be back in a moment; and I can manage it without any body being the wiser.”

She pushed Anne's chair close to the nearest open window--a window at the upper end of the library--and ran out.

Blanche had barely left the room, by the door that led into the hall, when Geoffrey entered it by one of the lower windows opening from the lawn.

With his mind absorbed in the letter that he was about to write, he slowly advanced up the room toward the nearest table. Anne, hearing the sound of footsteps, started, and looked round. Her failing strength rallied in an instant, under the sudden relief of seeing him again. She rose and advanced eagerly, with a faint tinge of color in her cheeks. He looked up. The two stood face to face together--alone.

”Geoffrey!”

He looked at her without answering--without advancing a step, on his side. There was an evil light in his eyes; his silence was the brute silence that threatens dumbly. He had made up his mind never to see her again, and she had entrapped him into an interview. He had made up his mind to write, and there she stood forcing him to speak. The sum of her offenses against him was now complete. If there had ever been the faintest hope of her raising even a pa.s.sing pity in his heart, that hope would have been annihilated now.

She failed to understand the full meaning of his silence. She made her excuses, poor soul, for venturing back to Windygates--her excuses to the man whose purpose at that moment was to throw her helpless on the world.

”Pray forgive me for coming here,” she said. ”I have done nothing to compromise you, Geoffrey. n.o.body but Blanche knows I am at Windygates.

And I have contrived to make my inquiries about you without allowing her to suspect our secret.” She stopped, and began to tremble. She saw something more in his face than she had read in it at first. ”I got your letter,” she went on, rallying her sinking courage. ”I don't complain of its being so short: you don't like letter-writing, I know. But you promised I should hear from you again. And I have never heard. And oh, Geoffrey, it was so lonely at the inn!”

She stopped again, and supported herself by resting her hand on the table. The faintness was stealing back on her. She tried to go on again.

It was useless--she could only look at him now.

”What do you want?” he asked, in the tone of a man who was putting an unimportant question to a total stranger.

A last gleam of her old energy flickered up in her face, like a dying flame.

”I am broken by what I have gone through,” she said. ”Don't insult me by making me remind you of your promise.”

”What promise?”'

”For shame, Geoffrey! for shame! Your promise to marry me.”

”You claim my promise after what you have done at the inn?”

She steadied herself against the table with one hand, and put the other hand to her head. Her brain was giddy. The effort to think was too much for her. She said to herself, vacantly, ”The inn? What did I do at the inn?”

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