in a moment," she answered, and closed the door again between them.

No! it was not to be done. Something in Blanche's trivial question--or
something, perhaps, in the sight of Blanche's face--roused the
warning instinct in Anne, which silenced her on the very brink of the
disclosure. At the last moment the iron chain of circumstances made
itself felt, binding her without mercy to the hateful, the degrading
deceit. Could she own the truth, about Geoffrey and herself, to Blanche?
and, without owning it, could she explain and justify Arnold's conduct
in joining her privately at Craig Fernie? A shameful confession made to
an innocent girl; a risk of fatally shaking Arnold's place in Blanche's
estimation; a scandal at the inn, in the disgrace of which the others
would be involved with herself--this was the price at which she must
speak, if she followed her first impulse, and said, in so many words,
"Arnold is here."

It was not to be thought of. Cost what it might in present
wretchedness--end how it might, if the deception was discovered in the
future--Blanche must be kept in ignorance of the truth, Arnold must be
kept in hiding until she had gone.

Anne opened the door for the second time, and went in.

The business of the toilet was standing still. Blanche was in
confidential communication with Mrs. Inchbare. At the moment when Anne
entered the room she was eagerly questioning the landlady about her
friend's "invisible husband"--she was just saying, "Do tell me! what is
he like?"

The capacity for accurate observation is a capacity so uncommon, and is