“There is something else that I want to say to you,” she resumed.  “My friend had a loss while she was staying at the inn.”

The clouds of doubt rolled off the mind of Mr. Bishopriggs.  The lady’s friend knew of the lost letter.  And, better still, the lady’s friend looked as if she wanted it!

“Ay! ay!” he said, with all due appearance of carelessness.  “Like eneugh.  From the mistress downward, they’re a’ kittle cattle at the inn since I’ve left ’em.  What may it ha’ been that she lost?”

“She lost a letter.”

The look of uneasy expectation reappeared in the eye of Mr. Bishopriggs.  It was a question—­and a serious question, from his point of view—­whether any suspicion of theft was attached to the disappearance of the letter.

“When ye say ‘lost,’” he asked, “d’ye mean stolen?”

Blanche was quite quick enough to see the necessity of quieting his mind on this point.

“Oh no!” she answered.  “Not stolen.  Only lost.  Did you hear about it?”

“Wherefore suld I ha’ heard aboot it?” He looked hard at Blanche—­and detected a momentary hesitation in her face.  “Tell me this, my young leddy,” he went on, advancing warily near to the point.  “When ye’re speering for news o’ your friend’s lost letter—­what sets ye on comin’ to me?”

Those words were decisive.  It is hardly too much to say that Blanche’s future depended on Blanche’s answer to that question.

If she could have produced the money; and if she had said, boldly, “You have got the letter, Mr. Bishopriggs:  I pledge my word that no questions shall be asked, and I offer you ten pounds for it”—­in all probability the bargain would have been struck; and the whole course of coming events would, in that case, have been altered.  But she had no money left; and there were no friends, in the circle at Swanhaven, to whom she could apply, without being misinterpreted, for a loan of ten pounds, to be privately intrusted to her on the spot.  Under stress of sheer necessity Blanche abandoned all hope of making any present appeal of a pecuniary nature to the confidence of Bishopriggs.

The one other way of attaining her object that she could see was to arm herself with the influence of Sir Patrick’s name.  A man, placed in her position, would have thought it mere madness to venture on such a risk as this.  But Blanche—­with one act of rashness already on her conscience—­rushed, woman-like, straight to the commission of another.  The same headlong eagerness to reach her end, which had hurried her into questioning Geoffrey before he left Windygates, now drove her, just as recklessly, into taking the management of Bishopriggs out of Sir Patrick’s skilled and practiced hands.  The starving sisterly love in her hungered for a trace of Anne.  Her heart whispered, Risk it!  And Blanche risked it on the spot.

“Sir Patrick set me on coming to you,” she said.

The opening hand of Mr. Bishopriggs—­ready to deliver the letter, and receive the reward—­closed again instantly as she spoke those words.