the old housekeeper, and she comes up to him, panting and grunting as
she climbs each step. Keeping some distance from her, he asks in a
whisper where Anne is. The woman answers that she is in the
hospital.

"Tell her I have been called away suddenly on business," he says,
speaking in quick, low tones: "I shall be away for some days. Tell
her to leave here and return home immediately. They can do without
her here now. Tell her to go back home at once. I will join her
there."

He moves toward the door but stops and faces round again.

"Tell her I beg and entreat her not to stop in this place an hour
longer. There is nothing to keep her now. It is all over: there is
nothing that cannot be done by any one. Tell her she must go home--
this very night. Tell her if she loves me to leave this place at
once."

The woman, a little bewildered by his vehemence, promises, and
disappears down the stairs. He takes his hat and cloak from the
chair on which he had thrown them, and turns once more to cross the
hall. As he does so, the door opens and Anne enters.

He darts back into the shadow, squeezing himself against the wall.
Anne calls to him laughingly, then, as he does not answer, with a
frightened accent:

"John,--John, dear. Was not that you? Are not you there?"