soon as I can. But, before I say any thing else, let me entreat you,
as the greatest favor you can do to your sister and your friend, not to
enter into any disputes about me with Lady Lundie, and not to commit
the imprudence--the useless imprudence, my love--of coming here." She
stopped--the paper swam before her eyes. "My own darling!" she thought,
"who could have foreseen that I should ever shrink from the thought of
seeing _you?"_ She sighed, and dipped the pen in the ink, and went on
with the letter.

The sky darkened rapidly as the evening fell. The wind swept in fainter
and fainter gusts across the dreary moor. Far and wide over the face of
Nature the stillness was fast falling which tells of a coming storm.


CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

ARNOLD.

MEANWHILE Arnold remained shut up in the head-waiter's pantry--chafing
secretly at the position forced upon him.

He was, for the first time in his life, in hiding from another person,
and that person a man. Twice--stung to it by the inevitable loss of
self-respect which his situation occasioned--he had gone to the door,
determined to face Sir Patrick boldly; and twice he had abandoned the
idea, in mercy to Anne. It would have been impossible for him to set
himself right with Blanche's guardian without betraying the unhappy
woman whose secret he was bound in honor to keep. "I wish to Heaven I
had never come here!" was the useless aspiration that escaped him, as
he doggedly seated himself on the dresser to wait till Sir Patrick's