volunteered to fetch her.

Blanche's attention--easily enough distracted on other
occasions--remained steadily fixed on Anne.

"You are not yourself," she said, "and I must know the reason of it. I
will wait till to-night; and then you will tell me, when you come into
my room. Don't look like that! You _shall_ tell me. And there's a kiss
for you in the mean time!"

She joined Arnold, and recovered her gayety the moment she looked at
him.

"Well? Have you got through the hoops?"

"Never mind the hoops. I have broken the ice with Sir Patrick."

"What! before all the company!"

"Of course not! I have made an appointment to speak to him here."

They went laughing down the steps, and joined the game.

Left alone, Anne Silvester walked slowly to the inner and darker part of
the summer-house. A glass, in a carved wooden frame, was fixed
against one of the side walls. She stopped and looked into it--looked,
shuddering, at the reflection of herself.

"Is the time coming," she said, "when even Blanche will see what I am in
my face?"