No! it was not to be done.  Something in Blanche’s trivial question—­or something, perhaps, in the sight of Blanche’s face—­roused the warning instinct in Anne, which silenced her on the very brink of the disclosure.  At the last moment the iron chain of circumstances made itself felt, binding her without mercy to the hateful, the degrading deceit.  Could she own the truth, about Geoffrey and herself, to Blanche? and, without owning it, could she explain and justify Arnold’s conduct in joining her privately at Craig Fernie?  A shameful confession made to an innocent 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 only see me now!”