Anne’s hold of the letter relaxed.  She let Bishopriggs repossess himself of it as it dropped on the floor between them, without making an effort to prevent him.

“It may be a’ the same to you, now ye’ve married the other man, whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the by-gone time, or no.”  Those words presented Anne’s position before her in a light in which she had not seen it yet.  She had truly expressed the loathing that Geoffrey now inspired in her, when she had declared, in her letter to Arnold, that, even if he offered her marriage, in atonement for the past, she would rather be what she was than be his wife.  It had never occurred to her, until this moment, that others would misinterpret the sensitive pride which had prompted the abandonment of her claim on the man who had ruined her.  It had never been brought home to her until now, that if she left him contemptuously to go his own way, and sell himself to the first woman who had money enough to buy him, her conduct would sanction the false conclusion that she was powerless to interfere, because she was married already to another man.  The color that had risen in her face vanished, and left it deadly pale again.  She began to see that the purpose of her journey to the north was not completed yet.

“I will give you your receipt,” she said.  “Tell me what to write, and it shall be written.”

Bishopriggs dictated the receipt.  She wrote and signed it.  He put it in his pocket-book with the five-pound note, and handed her the letter in exchange.

“Tear it if ye will,” he said.  “It matters naething to me.”

For a moment she hesitated.  A sudden shuddering shook her from head to foot—­the forewarning, it might be, of the influence which that letter, saved from destruction by a hair’s-breadth, was destined to exercise on her life to come.  She recovered herself, and folded her cloak closer to her, as if she had felt a passing chill.

“No,” she said; “I will keep the letter.”

She folded it and put it in the pocket of her dress.  Then turned to go—­and stopped at the door.

“One thing more,” she added.  “Do you know Mrs. Glenarm’s present address?”

“Ye’re no’ reely going to Mistress Glenarm?”

“That is no concern of yours.  You can answer my question or not, as you please.”

“Eh, my leddy! yer temper’s no’ what it used to be in the auld times at the hottle.  Aweel! aweel! ye ha’ gi’en me yer money, and I’ll een gi’ ye back gude measure for it, on my side.  Mistress Glenarm’s awa’ in private—­incog, as they say—­to Jaffray Delamayn’s brither at Swanhaven Lodge.  Ye may rely on the information, and it’s no’ that easy to come at either.  They’ve keepit it a secret as they think from a’ the warld.  Hech! hech!  Tammy Pennyquick’s youngest but twa is page-boy at the hoose where the leddy’s been veesitin’, on the outskirts o’ Pairth.  Keep a secret if ye can frae the pawky ears o’