of her runaway governess's return to the house.

But the secret of Anne's silence completely baffled him.

He was simply incapable of conceiving that the horror of seeing herself
set up as an obstacle to Blanche's marriage might have been vivid
enough to overpower all sense of her own wrongs, and to hurry her away,
resolute, in her ignorance of what else to do, never to return again,
and never to let living eyes rest on her in the character of Arnold's
wife. "It's clean beyond _my_ making out," was the final conclusion at
which Geoffrey arrived. "If it's her interest to hold her tongue, it's
my interest to hold mine, and there's an end of it for the present!"

He put up his feet on a chair, and rested his magnificent muscles after
his walk, and filled another pipe, in thorough contentment with himself.
No interference to dread from Anne, no more awkward questions (on the
terms they were on now) to come from Arnold. He looked back at the
quarrel on the heath with a certain complacency--he did his friend
justice; though they _had_ disagreed. "Who would have thought the fellow
had so much pluck in him!" he said to himself as he struck the match and
lit his second pipe.

An hour more wore on; and Sir Patrick was the next person who returned.

He was thoughtful, but in no sense depressed. Judging by appearances,
his errand to Craig Fernie had certainly not ended in disappointment.
The old gentleman hummed his favorite little Scotch air--rather
absently, perhaps--and took his pinch of snuff from the knob of his
ivory cane much as usual. He went to the library bell and summoned a
servant.