“I have meant to move it, for some time past.”

“I ask you why you have moved it.”

She wrote these four words on the slate:  “The wall is damp.”

Anne looked at the wall.  There was no sign of damp on the paper.  She passed her hand over it.  Feel where she might, the wall was dry.

“That is not your reason,” she said.

Hester stood immovable.

“There is no dampness in the wall.”

Hester pointed persistently with her pencil to the four words, still without looking up—­waited a moment for Anne to read them again—­and left the room.

It was plainly useless to call her back.  Anne’s first impulse when she was alone again was to secure the door.  She not only locked it, but bolted it at top and bottom.  The mortise of the lock and the staples of the bolts, when she tried them, were firm.  The lurking treachery—­wherever else it might be—­was not in the fastenings of the door.

She looked all round the room; examining the fire place, the window and its shutters, the interior of the wardrobe, the hidden space under the bed.  Nothing was any where to be discovered which could justify the most timid person living in feeling suspicion or alarm.

Appearances, fair as they were, failed to convince her.  The presentiment of some hidden treachery, steadily getting nearer and nearer to her in the dark, had rooted itself firmly in her mind.  She sat down, and tried to trace her way back to the clew, through the earlier events of the day.

The effort was fruitless:  nothing definite, nothing tangible, rewarded it.  Worse still, a new doubt grew out of it—­a doubt whether the motive which Sir Patrick had avowed (through Blanche) was the motive for helping her which was really in his mind.

Did he sincerely believe Geoffrey’s conduct to be animated by no worse object than a mercenary object? and was his only purpose in planning to remove her out of her husband’s reach, to force Geoffrey’s consent to their separation on the terms which Julius had proposed?  Was this really the sole end that he had in view? or was he secretly convinced (knowing Anne’s position as he knew it) that she was in personal danger at the cottage? and had he considerately kept that conviction concealed, in the fear that he might otherwise encourage her to feel alarmed about herself?  She looked round the strange room, in the silence of the night, and she felt that the latter interpretation was the likeliest interpretation of the two.

The sounds caused by the closing of the doors and windows reached her from the ground-floor.  What was to be done?

It was impossible, to show the signal which had been agreed on to Sir Patrick and Arnold.  The window in which they expected to see it was the window of the room in which the fire had broken out—­the room which Hester Dethridge had locked up for the night.

It was equally hopeless to wait until the policeman passed on his beat, and to call for help.  Even if she could prevail upon herself to make that open acknowledgment of distrust under her husband’s roof, and even if help was near, what valid reason could she give for raising an alarm?  There was not the shadow of a reason to justify any one in placing her under the protection of the law.