“I can play no more,” she said.  “Forgive me—­I am quite unequal to it.  My head burns! my heart stifles me!”

She began to pace the room again.  Aggravated by the effect of the storm on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the false position into which she and Arnold had allowed themselves to drift had strengthened, by this time, into a downright horror of their situation which was not to be endured.  Nothing could justify such a risk as the risk they were now running!  They had dined together like married people—­and there they were, at that moment, shut in together, and passing the evening like man and wife!

“Oh, Mr. Brinkworth!” she pleaded.  “Think—­for Blanche’s sake, think—­is there no way out of this?”

Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards.

“Blanche, again?” he said, with the most exasperating composure.  “I wonder how she feels, in this storm?”

In Anne’s excited state, the reply almost maddened her.  She turned from Arnold, and hurried to the door.

“I don’t care!” she cried, wildly.  “I won’t let this deception go on.  I’ll do what I ought to have done before.  Come what may of it, I’ll tell the landlady the truth!”

She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping into the passage—­when she stopped, and started violently.  Was it possible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actually heard the sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved road outside the inn?

Yes! others had heard the sound too.  The hobbling figure of Mr. Bishopriggs passed her in the passage, making for the house door.  The hard voice of the landlady rang through the inn, ejaculating astonishment in broad Scotch.  Anne closed the sitting-room door again, and turned to Arnold—­who had risen, in surprise, to his feet.

“Travelers!” she exclaimed.  “At this time!”

“And in this weather!” added Arnold.

“Can it be Geoffrey?” she asked—­going back to the old vain delusion that he might yet feel for her, and return.

Arnold shook his head.  “Not Geoffrey.  Whoever else it may be—­not
Geoffrey!”

Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room—­with her cap-ribb ons flying, her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder than ever.

“Eh, mistress!” she said to Anne.  “Wha do ye think has driven here to see ye, from Windygates Hoose, and been owertaken in the storm?”

Anne was speechless.  Arnold put the question:  “Who is it?”

“Wha is’t?” repeated Mrs. Inchbare.  “It’s joost the bonny young leddy—­Miss Blanche hersel’.”

An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne.  The landlady set it down to the lightning, which flashed into the room again at the same moment.

“Eh, mistress! ye’ll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than to skirl at a flash o’ lightning, that gait!  Here she is, the bonny birdie!” exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out into the passage again.