Anne answered sadly and plainly: 

“I have no influence over him.  The terms we are living on here—­”

Mr. Speedwell considerately stopped her.

“I understand,” he said.  “I will see his brother on my way home.”  He looked for a moment at Anne.  “You are far from well yourself,” he resumed.  “Can I do any thing for you?”

“While I am living my present life, Mr. Speedwell, not even your skill can help me.”

The surgeon took his leave.  Anne hurried back up stairs, before Geoffrey could re-enter the cottage.  To see the man who had laid her life waste—­to meet the vindictive hatred that looked furtively at her out of his eyes—­at the moment when sentence of death had been pronounced on him, was an ordeal from which every finer instinct in her nature shrank in horror.

Hour by hour, the morning wore on, and he made no attempt to communicate with her, Stranger still, Hester Dethridge never appeared.  The servant came up stairs to say goodby; and went away for her holiday.  Shortly afterward, certain sounds reached Anne’s ears from the opposite side of the passage.  She heard the strokes of a hammer, and then a noise as of some heavy piece of furniture being moved.  The mysterious repairs were apparently being begun in the spare room.

She went to the window.  The hour was approaching at which Sir Patrick and Blanche might be expected to make the attempt to see her.

For the third time, she looked at the letter.

It suggested, on this occasion, a new consideration to her.  Did the strong measures which Sir Patrick had taken in secret indicate alarm as well as sympathy?  Did he believe she was in a position in which the protection of the law was powerless to reach her?  It seemed just possible.  Suppose she were free to consult a magistrate, and to own to him (if words could express it) the vague presentiment of danger which was then present in her mind—­what proof could she produce to satisfy the mind of a stranger?  The proofs were all in her husband’s favor.  Witnesses could testify to the conciliatory words which he had spoken to her in their presence.  The evidence of his mother and brother would show that he had preferred to sacrifice his own pecuniary interests rather than consent to part with her.  She could furnish nobody with the smallest excuse, in her case, for interfering between man and wife.  Did Sir Patrick see this?  And did Blanche’s description of what he and Arnold Brinkworth were doing point to the conclusion that they were taking the law into their own hands in despair?  The more she thought of it, the more likely it seemed.

She was still pursuing the train of thought thus suggested, when the gate-bell rang.

The noises in the spare room suddenly stopped.

Anne looked out.  The roof of a carriage was visible on the other side of the wall.  Sir Patrick and Blanche had arrived.  After an interval Hester Dethridge appeared in the garden, and went to the grating in the gate.  Anne heard Sir Patrick’s voice, clear and resolute.  Every word he said reached her ears through the open window.