By the time Arnold was composed enough to look round him, the chaise had taken the curve in the road which wound behind the farmhouse.  He returned—­faithful to the engagement which he had undertaken—­to his post before the inclosure.  The chaise was then a speck in the distance.  In a minute more it was a speck out of sight.

So (to use Sir Patrick’s phrase) had the woman broken through difficulties which would have stopped a man.  So, in her sore need, had Anne Silvester won the sympathy which had given her a place, by the farmer’s side, in the vehicle that took him on his own business to the market-town.  And so, by a hair’s-breadth, did she escape the treble risk of discovery which threatened her—­from Geoffrey, on his way back; from Arnold, at his post; and from the valet, on the watch for her appearance at the station.

The afternoon wore on.  The servants at Windygates, airing themselves in the grounds—­in the absence of their mistress and her guests—­were disturbed, for the moment, by the unexpected return of one of “the gentlefolks.”  Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn reappeared at the house alone; went straight to the smoking-room; and calling for another supply of the old ale, settled himself in an arm-chair with the newspaper, and began to smoke.

He soon tired of reading, and fell into thinking of what had happened during the latter part of his walk.

The prospect before him had more than realized the most sanguine anticipations that he could have formed of it.  He had braced himself—­after what had happened in the library—­to face the outbreak of a serious scandal, on his return to the house.  And here—­when he came back—­was nothing to face!  Here were three people (Sir Patrick, Arnold, and Blanche) who must at least know that Anne was in some serious trouble keeping the secret as carefully as if they felt that his interests were at stake!  And, more wonderful still, here was Anne herself—­so far from raising a hue and cry after him—­actually taking flight without saying a word that could compromise him with any living soul!

What in the name of wonder did it mean?  He did his best to find his way to an explanation of some sort; and he actually contrived to account for the silence of Blanche and her uncle, and Arnold.  It was pretty clear that they must have all three combined to keep Lady Lundie in ignorance of her runaway governess’s return to the house.

But the secret of Anne’s silence completely baffled him.

He was simply incapable of conceiving that the horror of seeing herself set up as an obstacle to Blanche’s marriage might have been vivid enough to overpower all sense of her own wrongs, and to hurry her away, resolute, in her ignorance of what else to do, never to return again, and never to let living eyes rest on her in the character of Arnold’s wife.  “It’s clean beyond my making out,” was the final conclusion at which Geoffrey arrived.  “If it’s her interest to hold her tongue, it’s my interest to hold mine, and there’s an end of it for the present!”