(Geoffrey’s stolidly-staring eyes suddenly brightened.  A light of the devil’s own striking illuminated him.  An idea of the devil’s own bringing entered his mind.  He looked stealthily round at the man whose life he had saved—­at the man who had devotedly served him in return.  A hideous cunning leered at his mouth and peeped out of his eyes.  “Arnold Brinkworth pretended to be married to her at the inn.  By the lord Harry! that’s a way out of it that never struck me before!” With that thought in his heart he turned back again to his half-finished letter to Julius.  For once in his life he was strongly, fiercely agitated.  For once in his life he was daunted—­and that by his Own Thought!  He had written to Julius under a strong sense of the necessity of gaining time to delude Anne into leaving Scotland before he ventured on paying his addresses to Mrs. Glenarm.  His letter contained a string of clumsy excuses, intended to delay his return to his brother’s house.  “No,” he said to himself, as he read it again.  “Whatever else may do—­this won’t!” He looked round once more at Arnold, and slowly tore the letter into fragments as he looked.)

In the mean time Blanche had not done yet.  “No,” she said, when Arnold proposed an adjournment to the garden; “I have something more to say, and you are interested in it, this time.”  Arnold resigned himself to listen, and worse still to answer, if there was no help for it, in the character of an innocent stranger who had never been near the Craig Fernie inn.

“Well,” Blanche resumed, “and what do you think has come of my letter to Anne?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Nothing has come of it!”

“Indeed?”

“Absolutely nothing!  I know she received the letter yesterday morning.  I ought to have had the answer to-day at breakfast.”

“Perhaps she thought it didn’t require an answer.”

“She couldn’t have thought that, for reasons that I know of.  Besides, in my letter yesterday I implored her to tell me (if it was one line only) whether, in guessing at what her trouble was, Sir Patrick and I had not guessed right.  And here is the day getting on, and no answer!  What am I to conclude?”

“I really can’t say!”

“Is it possible, Arnold, that we have not guessed right, after all?  Is the wickedness of that man who blew the candles out wickedness beyond our discovering?  The doubt is so dreadful that I have made up my mind not to bear it after to-day.  I count on your sympathy and assistance when to-morrow comes!”

Arnold’s heart sank.  Some new complication was evidently gathering round him.  He waited in silence to hear the worst.  Blanche bent forward, and whispered to him.

“This is a secret,” she 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!”