Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to another.

“I request Mr. Moy’s permission to revert to the alleged marriage, on the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie,” he said.  “Arnold Brinkworth! answer for yourself, in the presence of the persons here assembled.  In all that you said, and all that you did, while you were at the inn, were you not solely influenced by the wish to make Miss Silvester’s position as little painful to her as possible, and by anxiety to carry out the instructions given to you by Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?  Is that the whole truth?”

“That is the whole truth, Sir Patrick.”

“On the day when you went to Craig Fernie, had you not, a few hours previously, applied for my permission to marry my niece?”

“I applied for your permission, Sir Patrick; and you gave it me.”

“From the moment when you entered the inn to the moment when you left it, were you absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Miss Silvester?”

“No such thing as the thought of marrying Miss Silvester ever entered my head.”

“And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“On my word of honor as a gentleman.”

Sir Patrick turned to Anne.

“Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should appear in the assumed character of a married woman—­on the fourteenth of August last, at the Craig Fernie inn?”

Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time.  She replied to Sir Patrick quietly, readily, firmly—­Blanche looking at her, and listening to her with eager interest.

“I went to the inn alone, Sir Patrick.  The landlady refused, in the plainest terms, to let me stay there, unless she was first satisfied that I was a married woman.”

“Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you at the inn—­Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place and said what was necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you understood that he was acting in your interests, from motives of kindness only, and under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“I understood that; and I objected as strongly as I could to Mr. Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my account.”

“Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the Scottish law of marriage, and of the position in which the peculiarities of that law might place Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I had no knowledge of the Scottish law.  I had a vague dislike and dread of the deception which Mr. Brinkworth was practicing on the people of the inn.  And I feared that it might lead to some possible misinterpretation of me on the part of a person whom I dearly loved.”

“That person being my niece?”

“Yes.”

“You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attachment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?”