“Worse even than that!  A day or two later, Blanche took me into her confidence.  She spoke to me of her visit to the inn, as if I was a perfect stranger to the circumstances.  She told me to my face, Sir Patrick, of the invisible man who had kept so strangely out of her way—­without the faintest suspicion that I was the man.  And I never opened my lips to set her right!  I was obliged to be silent, or I must have betrayed Miss Silvester.  What will Blanche think of me, if I tell her now?  That’s the question!”

Blanche’s name had barely passed her husband’s lips before Blanche herself verified Sir Patrick’s prediction, by reappearing at the open French window, with the superseded white hat in her hand.

“Haven’t you done yet!” she exclaimed.  “I am shocked, uncle, to interrupt you again—­but these horrid hats of Arnold’s are beginning to weigh upon my mind.  On reconsideration, I think the white hat with the low crown is the most becoming of the two.  Change again, dear.  Yes! the brown hat is hideous.  There’s a beggar at the gate.  Before I go quite distracted, I shall give him the brown hat, and have done with the difficulty in that manner.  Am I very much in the way of business?  I’m afraid I must appear restless?  Indeed, I am restless.  I can’t imagine what is the matter with me this morning.”

“I can tell you,” said Sir Patrick, in his gravest and dryest manner.  “You are suffering, Blanche, from a malady which is exceedingly common among the young ladies of England.  As a disease it is quite incurable—­and the name of it is Nothing-to-Do.”

Blanche dropped her uncle a smart little courtesy.  “You might have told me I was in the way in fewer words than that.”  She whisked round, kicked the disgraced brown hat out into the veranda before her, and left the two gentlemen alone once more.

“Your position with your wife, Arnold,” resumed Sir Patrick, returning gravely to the matter in hand, “is certainly a difficult one.”  He paused, thinking of the evening when he and Blanche had illustrated the vagueness of Mrs. Inchbare’s description of the man at the inn, by citing Arnold himself as being one of the hundreds of innocent people who answered to it!  “Perhaps,” he added, “the situation is even more difficult than you suppose.  It would have been certainly easier for you—­and it would have looked more honorable in her estimation—­if you had made the inevitable confession before your marriage.  I am, in some degree, answerable for your not having done this—­as well as for the far more serious dilemma with Miss Silvester in which you now stand.  If I had not innocently hastened your marriage with Blanche, Miss Silvester’s admirable letter would have reached us in ample time to prevent mischief.  It’s useless to dwell on that now.  Cheer up, Arnold!  I am bound to show you the way out of the labyrinth, no matter what the difficulties may be—­and, please God, I will do it!”