At that important point in the conversation they were interrupted by the reappearance of Blanche.  Had she, by any accident, heard what they had been saying?

No; it was the old story of most interruptions.  Idleness that considers nothing, had come to look at Industry that bears every thing.  It is a law of nature, apparently, that the people in this world who have nothing to do can not support the sight of an uninterrupted occupation in the hands of their neighbors.  Blanche produced a new specimen from Arnold’s collection of hats.  “I have been thinking about it in the garden,” she said, quite seriously.  “Here is the brown one with the high crown.  You look better in this than in the white one with the low crown.  I have come to change them, that’s all.”  She changed the hats with Arnold, and went on, without the faintest suspicion that she was in the way.  “Wear the brown one when you come out—­and come soon, dear.  I won’t stay an instant longer, uncle—­I wouldn’t interrupt you for the world.”  She kissed her hand to Sir Patrick, and smiled at her husband, and went out.

“What were we saying?” asked Arnold.  “It’s awkward to be interrupted in this way, isn’t it?”

“If I know any thing of female human nature,” returned Sir Patrick, composedly, “your wife will be in and out of the room, in that way, the whole morning.  I give her ten minutes, Arnold, before she changes her mind again on the serious and weighty subject of the white hat and the brown.  These little interruptions—­otherwise quite charming—­raised a doubt in my mind.  Wouldn’t it be wise (I ask myself), if we made a virtue of necessity, and took Blanche into the conversation?  What do you say to calling her back and telling her the truth?”

Arnold started, and changed color.

“There are difficulties in the way,” he said.

“My good fellow! at every step of this business there are difficulties in the way.  Sooner or later, your wife must know what has happened.  The time for telling her is, no doubt, a matter for your decision, not mine.  All I say is this.  Consider whether the disclosure won’t come from you with a better grace, if you make it before you are fairly driven to the wall, and obliged to open your lips.”

Arnold rose to his fee t—­took a turn in the room—­sat down again—­and looked at Sir Patrick, with the expression of a thoroughly bewildered and thoroughly helpless man.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.  “It beats me altogether.  The truth is, Sir Patrick, I was fairly forced, at Craig Fernie, into deceiving Blanche—­in what might seem to her a very unfeeling, and a very unpardonable way.”

“That sounds awkward!  What do you mean?”

“I’ll try and tell you.  You remember when you went to the inn to see Miss Silvester?  Well, being there privately at the time, of course I was obliged to keep out of your way.”

“I see!  And, when Blanche came afterward, you were obliged to hide from Blanche, exactly as you had hidden from me?”