“And, as for poor Miss Silvester, though she felt, as she reminds me, some misgivings—­still, she never could have foreseen, being no lawyer either, how it was to end.  I hardly know the best way to break it to you.  I can’t, and won’t, believe it myself.  But even if it should be true, I am quite sure you will find a way out of it for us.  I will stick at nothing, and Miss Silvester (as you will see by her letter) will stick at nothing either, to set things right.  Of course, I have not said one word to my darling Blanche, who is quite happy, and suspects nothing.  All this, dear Sir Patrick, is very badly written, I am afraid, but it is meant to prepare you, and to put the best side on matters at starting.  However, the truth must be told—­and shame on the Scotch law is what I say.  This it is, in short:  Geoffrey Delamayn is even a greater scoundrel than you think him; and I bitterly repent (as things have turned out) having held my tongue that night when you and I had our private talk at Ham Farm.  You will think I am mixing two things up together.  But I am not.  Please to keep this about Geoffrey in your mind, and piece it together with what I have next to say.  The worst is still to come.  Miss Silvester’s letter (inclosed) tells me this terrible thing.  You must know that I went to her privately, as Geoffrey’s messenger, on the day of the lawn-party at Windygates.  Well—­how it could have happened, Heaven only knows—­but there is reason to fear that I married her, without being aware of it myself, in August last, at the Craig Fernie inn.”

The letter dropped from Sir Patrick’s hand.  He sank back in the chair, stunned for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on him.

He rallied, and rose bewildered to his feet.  He took a turn in the room.  He stopped, and summoned his will, and steadied himself by main force.  He picked up the letter, and read the last sentence again.  His face flushed.  He was on the point of yielding himself to a useless out burst of anger against Arnold, when his better sense checked him at the last moment.  “One fool in the family is, enough,” he said. “My business in this dreadful emergency is to keep my head clear for Blanche’s sake.”

He waited once more, to make sure of his own composure—­and turned again to the letter, to see what the writer had to say for himself, in the way of explanation and excuse.

Arnold had plenty to say—­with the drawback of not knowing how to say it.  It was hard to decide which quality in his letter was most marked—­the total absence of arrangement, or the total absence of reserve.  Without beginning, middle, or end, he told the story of his fatal connection with the troubles of Anne Silvester, from the memorable day when Geoffrey Delamayn sent him to Craig Fernie, to the equally memorable night when Sir Patrick had tried vainly to make him open his lips at Ham Farm.