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

He was, for the first time in his life, in hiding from anotherperson, and that person a man. Twice--stung to it by theinevitable loss of self-respect which his situationoccasioned--he had gone to the door, determined to face SirPatrick boldly; and twice he had abandoned the idea, in mercy toAnne. It would have been impossible for him to set himself rightwith Blanche's guardian without betraying the unhappy woman whosesecret he was bound in honor to keep. "I wish to Heaven I hadnever come here!" was the useless aspiration that escaped him, ashe doggedly seated himself on the dresser to wait till SirPatrick's departure set him free.

After an interval--not by any means the long interval which hehad anticipated--his solitude was enlivened by the appearance ofFather Bishopriggs.

"Well?" cried Arnold, jumping off the dresser, "is the coastclear?"

There were occasions when Mr. Bishopriggs became, on a sudden,unexpectedly hard of hearing, This was one of them.

"Hoo do ye find the paintry?" he asked, without paying theslightest attention to Arnold's question. "Snug and private? APatmos in the weelderness, as ye may say!"

His one available eye, which had begun by looking at Arnold'sface, dropped slowly downward, and fixed itself, in mute buteloquent expectation, on Arnold's waistcoat pocket.

"I understand!" said Arnold. "I promised to pay you for thePatmos--eh? There you are!"

Mr. Bishopriggs pocketed the money with a dreary smile and asympathetic shake of the head. Other waiters would have returnedthanks. The sage of Craig Fernie returned a few brief remarksinstead. Admirable in many things, Father Bishopriggs wasespecially great at drawing a moral. He drew a moral on thisoccasion from his own gratuity.

"There I am--as ye say. Mercy presairve us! ye need the siller atevery turn, when there's a woman at yer heels. It's an awfu'reflection--ye canna hae any thing to do wi' the sex they ca' theopposite sex without its being an expense to ye. There's thisyoung leddy o' yours, I doot she'll ha' been an expense to yefrom the first. When you were coortin' her, ye did it, I'll gobail, wi' the open hand. Presents and keep-sakes, flowers andjewelery, and little dogues. Sair expenses all of them!"

"Hang your reflections! Has Sir Patrick left the inn?"

The reflections of Mr. Bishopriggs declined to be disposed of inany thing approaching to a summary way. On they flowed from theirparent source, as slowly and as smoothly as ever!

"Noo ye're married to her, there's her bonnets and goons andunder-clothin'--her ribbons, laces, furbelows, and fallals. Asair expense again!"

"What is the expense of cutting your reflections short, Mr.Bishopriggs?"

"Thirdly, and lastly, if ye canna agree wi' her as time gaeson--if there's incompaitibeelity of temper betwixt ye--in short,if ye want a wee bit separation, hech, Sirs! ye pet yer hand inyer poaket, and come to an aimicable understandin' wi' her inthat way. Or, maybe she takes ye into Court, and pets _her_ handin your poaket, and comes to a hoastile understandin' wi' yethere. Show me a woman--and I'll show ye a man not far off wha'has mair expenses on his back than he ever bairgained for."Arnold's patience would last no longer--he turned to the door.Mr. Bishopriggs, with equal alacrity on his side, turned to thematter in hand. "Yes, Sir! The room is e'en clear o' SirPaitrick, and the leddy's alane, and waitin' for ye."

In a moment more Arnold was back in the sitting-room.

"Well?" he asked, anxiously. "What is it? Bad news from LadyLundie's?"

Anne closed and directed the letter to Blanche, which she hadjust completed. "No," she replied. "Nothing to interest _you."_."

"What did Sir Patrick want?"

"Only to warn me. They have found out at Windygates that I amhere."

"That's awkward, isn't it?"

"Not in the least. I can manage perfectly; I have nothing tofear. Don't think of _me_--think of yourself."

"I am not suspected, am I?"

"Thank heaven--no. But there is no knowing what may happen if youstay here. Ring the bell at once, and ask the waiter about thetrains."

Struck by the unusual obscurity of the sky at that hour of theevening, Arnold went to the window. The rain had come--and wasfalling heavily. The view on the moor was fast disappearing inmist and darkness.

"Pleasant weather to travel in!" he said.

"The railway!" Anne exclaimed, impatiently. "It's getting late.See about the railway!"

Arnold walked to the fire-place to ring the bell. The railwaytime-table hanging over it met his eye.

"Here's the information I want," he said to Anne; "if I only knewhow to get at it. 'Down'--'Up'--'A. M.'--P. M.' What a cursedconfusion! I believe they do it on purpose."

Anne joined him at the fire-place.

"I understand it--I'll help you. Did you say it was the up trainyou wanted?"

"What is the name of the station you stop at?"

Arnold told her. She followed the intricate net-work of lines andfigures with her finger--suddenly stopped--looked again to makesure--and turned from the time-table with a face of blankdespair. The last train for the day had gone an hour since.

In the silence which followed that discovery, a first flash oflightning passed across the window and the low roll of thundersounded the outbreak of the storm.

"What's to be done now?" asked Arnold.

In the face of the storm, Anne answered without hesitation, "Youmust take a carriage, and drive."

"Drive? They told me it was three-and-twenty miles, by railway,from the station to my place--let alone the distance from thisinn to the station."

"What does the distance matter? Mr. Brinkworth, you can'tpossibly stay here!"

A second flash of lightning crossed the window; the roll of thethunder came nearer. Even Arnold's good temper began to be alittle ruffled by Anne's determination to get rid of him. He satdown with the air of a man who had made up his mind not to leavethe house.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, as the sound of the thunder diedaway grandly, and the hard pattering of the rain on the windowbecame audible once more. "If I ordered horses, do you think theywould let me have them, in such weather as this? And, if theydid, do you suppose the horses could face it on the moor? No, no,Miss Silvester--I am sorry to be in the way, but the train hasgone, and the night and the storm have come. I have no choice butto stay here!"

Anne still maintained her own view, but less resolutely thanbefore. "After what you have told the landlady," she said, "thinkof the embarrassment, the cruel embarrassment of our position, ifyou stop at the inn till to-morrow morning!"

"Is that all?" returned Arnold.

Anne looked up at him, quickly and angrily. No! he was quiteunconscious of having said any thing that could offend her. Hisrough masculine sense broke its way unconsciously through all thelittle feminine subtleties and delicacies of his companion, andlooked the position practically in the face for what it wasworth, and no more. "Where's the embarrassment?" he asked,pointing to the bedroom door. "There's your room, all ready foryou. And here's the sofa, in this room, all ready for _me._ Ifyou had seen the places I have slept in at sea--!"

She interrupted him, without ceremony. The places he had sleptin, at sea, were of no earthly importance. The one question toconsider, was the place he was to sleep in that night.

"If you must stay," she rejoined, "can't you get a room in someother part of the house?"

But one last mistake in dealing with her, in her present nervouscondition, was left to make--and the innocent Arnold made it. "Insome other part of the house?" he repeated, jestingly. "Thelandlady would be scandalized. Mr. Bishopriggs would never allowit!"

She rose, and stamped her foot impatiently on the floor. "Don'tjoke!" she exclaimed. "This is no laughing matter." She paced theroom excitedly. "I don't like it! I don't like it!"

Arnold looked after her, with a stare of boyish wonder.

"What puts you out so?" he asked. "Is it the storm?"

She threw herself on the sofa again. "Yes," she said, shortly."It's the storm."

Arnold's inexhaustible good-nature was at once roused to activityagain.

"Shall we have the candles," he suggested, "and shut the weatherout?" She turned irritably on the sofa, without replying. "I'llpromise to go away the first thing in the morning!" he went on."Do try and take it easy--and don't be angry with me. Come! come!you wouldn't turn a dog out, Miss Silvester, on such a night asthis!"

He was irresistible. The most sensitive woman breathing could nothave accused him of failing toward her in any single essential ofconsideration and respect. He wanted tact, poor fellow--but whocould expect him to have learned that always superficial (andsometimes dangerous) accomplishment, in the life he had led atsea? At the sight of his honest, pleading face, Anne recoveredpossession of her gentler and sweeter self. She made her excusesfor her irritability with a grace that enchanted him. "We'll havea pleasant evening of it yet!" cried Arnold, in his heartyway--and rang the bell.

The bell was hung outside the door of that Patmos in thewilderness--otherwise known as the head-waiter's pantry. Mr.Bishopriggs (employing his brief leisure in the seclusion of hisown apartment) had just mixed a glass of the hot and comfortingliquor called "toddy" in the language of North Britain, and wasjust lifting it to his lips, when the summons from Arnold invitedhim to leave his grog.

"Haud yer screechin' tongue! " cried Mr. Bishopriggs, addressingthe bell through the door. "Ye're waur than a woman when ye aincebegin!"

The bell--like the woman--went on again. Mr. Bishopriggs, equallypertinacious, went on with his toddy.

"Ay! ay! ye may e'en ring yer heart out--but ye won't part aScotchman from his glass. It's maybe the end of their dinnerthey'll be wantin'. Sir Paitrick cam' in at the fair beginning ofit, and spoilt the collops, like the dour deevil he is!" The bellrang for the third time. "Ay! ay! ring awa'! I doot yon younggentleman's little better than a belly-god--there's a scandaloushaste to comfort the carnal part o' him in a' this ringin'! Heknows naething o' wine," added Mr. Bishopriggs, on whose mindArnold's discovery of the watered sherry still dweltunpleasantly.

The lightning quickened, and lit the sitting-room horribly withits lurid glare; the thunder rolled nearer and nearer over theblack gulf of the moor. Arnold had just raised his hand to ringfor the fourth time, when the inevitable knock was heard at thedoor. It was useless to say "come in." The immutable laws ofBishopriggs had decided that a second knock was necessary. Stormor no storm, the second knock came--and then, and not till then,the sage appeared, with the dish of untasted "collops" in hishand.

"Candles!" said Arnold.

Mr. Bishopriggs set the "collops" (in the language of England,minced meat) upon the table, lit the candles on the mantle-piece,faced about with the fire of recent toddy flaming in his nose,and waited for further orders, before he went back to his secondglass. Anne declined to return to the dinner. Arnold ordered Mr.Bishopriggs to close the shutters, and sat down to dine byhimself.

"It looks greasy, and smells greasy," he said to Anne, turningover the collops with a spoon. "I won't be ten minutes dining.Will you have some tea?"

Anne declined again.

Arnold tried her once more. "What shall we do to get through theevening?"

"Do what you like," she answered, resignedly.

Arnold's mind was suddenly illuminated by an idea.

"I have got it!" he exclaimed. "We'll kill the time as ourcabin-passengers used to kill it at sea." He looked over hisshoulder at Mr. Bishopriggs. "Waiter! bring a pack of cards."

"What's that ye're wantin'?" asked Mr. Bishopriggs, doubting theevidence of his own senses.

"A pack of cards," repeated Arnold.

"Cairds?" echoed Mr. Bishopriggs. "A pack o' cairds? The deevil'sallegories in the deevil's own colors--red and black! I wunnaexecute yer order. For yer ain saul's sake, I wunna do it. Ha' yelived to your time o' life, and are ye no' awakened yet to theawfu' seenfulness o' gamblin' wi' the cairds?"

"Just as you please," returned Arnold. "You will find meawakened--when I go away--to the awful folly of feeing a waiter."

"Does that mean that ye're bent on the cairds?" asked Mr.Bishopriggs, suddenly betraying signs of worldly anxiety in hislook and manner.

"Yes--that means I am bent on the cards."

"I tak' up my testimony against 'em--but I'm no' telling ye thatI canna lay my hand on 'em if I like. What do they say in mycountry? 'Him that will to Coupar, maun to Coupar.' And what dothey say in your country? 'Needs must when the deevil drives.' "With that excellent reason for turning his back on his ownprinciples, Mr. Bishopriggs shuffled out of the room to fetch thecards.

The dresser-drawer in the pantry contained a choice selection ofmiscellaneous objects--a pack of cards being among them. Insearching for the cards, the wary hand of the head-waiter came incontact with a morsel of crumpled-up paper. He drew it out, andrecognized the letter which he had picked up in the sitting-rooms ome hours since.

"Ay! ay! I'll do weel, I trow, to look at this while my mind'srunnin' on it," said Mr. Bishopriggs. "The cairds may e'en findtheir way to the parlor by other hands than mine."

He forthwith sent the cards to Arnold by his second in command,closed the pantry door, and carefully smoothed out the crumpledsheet of paper on which the two letters were written. This done,he trimmed his candle, and began with the letter in ink, whichoccupied the first three pages of the sheet of note-paper.

It ran thus:

"WINDYGATES HOUSE, _August_ 12, 1868.

"GEOFFREY DELAMAYN,--I have waited in the hope that you wouldride over from your brother's place, and see me--and I havewaited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty itself; I will bearit no longer. Consider! in your own interests, consider--beforeyou drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. Youhave promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim yourpromise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed Ishould be--what I have waited all this weary time to be--what I_am_, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie givesa lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. Iexpect you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won'tanswer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure thissuspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past! Befaithful--be just--to your loving wife,

"ANNE SILVESTER."

Mr. Bishopriggs paused. His commentary on the correspondence, sofar, was simple enough. "Hot words (in ink) from the leddy to thegentleman!" He ran his eye over the second letter, on the fourthpage of the paper, and added, cynically, "A trifle caulder (inpencil) from the gentleman to the leddy! The way o' the warld,Sirs! From the time o' Adam downwards, the way o' the warld!"

The second letter ran thus:

"DEAR ANNE,--Just called to London to my father. They havetelegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and I willwrite you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I'll keep my promise.Your loving husband that is to be,

"GEOFFREY DELAMAYN."

WINDYGATES HOUSE, _Augt._ 14, 4 P. M.

"In a mortal hurry. Train starts at 4.30."

There it ended!

"Who are the pairties in the parlor? Is ane o' them 'Silvester?'and t'other 'Delamayn?' " pondered Mr. Bishopriggs, slowlyfolding the letter up again in its original form. "Hech, Sirs!what, being intairpreted, may a' this mean?"

He mixed himself a second glass of toddy, as an aid toreflection, and sat sipping the liquor, and twisting and turningthe letter in his gouty fingers. It was not easy to see his wayto the true connection between the lady and gentleman in theparlor and the two letters now in his own possession. They mightbe themselves the writers of the letters, or they might be onlyfriends of the writers. Who was to decide?

In the first case, the lady's object would appear to have been asgood as gained; for the two had certainly asserted themselves tobe man and wife, in his own presence, and in the presence of thelandlady. In the second case, the correspondence so carelesslythrown aside might, for all a stranger knew to the contrary,prove to be of some importance in the future. Acting on thislatter view, Mr. Bishopriggs--whose past experience as "a bitclerk body," in Sir Patrick's chambers, had made a man ofbusiness of him--produced his pen and ink, and indorsed theletter with a brief dated statement of the circumstances underwhich he had found it. "I'll do weel to keep the Doecument," hethought to himself. "Wha knows but there'll be a reward offeredfor it ane o' these days? Eh! eh! there may be the warth o' a fi'pun' note in this, to a puir lad like me!"

With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tincash-box from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up thestolen correspondence to bide its time.

The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.

In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually changing,now presented itself under another new aspect.

Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away. He had nextdrawn a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay--had shuffledthe pack of cards--and was now using all his powers of persuasionto induce her to try one game at _Ecarté_ with him, by wayof diverting her attention from the tumult of the storm. In sheerweariness, she gave up contesting the matter; and, raisingherself languidly on the sofa, said she would try to play."Nothing can make matters worse than they are," she thought,despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her. "Nothing canjustify my inflicting my own wretchedness on this kind-heartedboy!"

Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. Anne'sattention perpetually wandered; and Anne's companion was, in allhuman probability, the most incapable card-player in Europe.

Anne turned up the trump--the nine of Diamonds. Arnold looked athis hand--and "proposed." Anne declined to change the cards.Arnold announced, with undiminished good-humor, that he saw hisway clearly, now, to losing the game, and then played his firstcard--the Queen of Trumps!

Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. Sheplayed the ten of Trumps.

Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his hand."What a pity!" he said, as he played it. "Hullo! you haven'tmarked the King! I'll do it for you. That's two--no, three--toyou. I said I should lose the game. Couldn't be expected to doany thing (could I?) with such a hand as mine. I've lost everything now I've lost my trumps. You to play."

Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the lightning flashedinto the room through the ill-closed shutters; the roar of thethunder burst over the house, and shook it to its foundation. Thescreaming of some hysterical female tourist, and the barking of adog, rose shrill from the upper floor of the inn. Anne's nervescould support it no longer. She flung her cards on the table, andsprang to her feet.

"I can play no more," she said. "Forgive me--I am quite unequalto it. My head burns! my heart stifles me!"

She began to pace the room again. Aggravated by the effect of thestorm on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the falseposition into which she and Arnold had allowed themselves todrift had strengthened, by this time, into a downright horror oftheir situation which was not to be endured. Nothing couldjustify such a risk as the risk they were now running! They haddined together like married people--and there they were, at thatmoment, shut in together, and passing the evening like man andwife!

"Oh, Mr. Brinkworth!" she pleaded. "Think--for Blanche's sake,think--is there no way out of this?"

Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards.

"Blanche, again?" he said, with the most exasperating composure."I wonder how she feels, in this storm?"

In Anne's excited state, the reply almost maddened her. Sheturned from Arnold, and hurried to the door.

"I don't care!" she cried, wildly. "I won't let this deception goon. I'll do what I ought to have done before. Come what may ofit, I'll tell the landlady the truth!"

She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping intothe passage--when she stopped, and started violently. Was itpossible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actually heardthe sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved road outsidethe inn?

Yes! others had heard the sound too. The hobbling figure of Mr.Bishopriggs passed her in the passage, making for the house door.The hard voice of the landlady rang through the inn, ejaculatingastonishment in broad Scotch. Anne closed the sitting-room dooragain, and turned to Arnold--who had risen, in surprise, to hisfeet.

"Travelers!" she exclaimed. "At this time!"

"And in this weather!" added Arnold.

"_Can_ it be Geoffrey?" she asked--going back to the old vaindelusion that he might yet feel for her, and return.

Arnold shook his head. "Not Geoffrey. Whoever else it may be--notGeoffrey!"

Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room--with her cap-ribb onsflying, her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder than ever.

"Eh, mistress!" she said to Anne. "Wha do ye think has drivenhere to see ye, from Windygates Hoose, and been owertaken in thestorm?"

Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question: "Who is it?"

"Wha is't?" repeated Mrs. Inchbare. "It's joost the bonny youngleddy--Miss Blanche hersel'."

An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The landlady setit down to the lightning, which flashed into the room again atthe same moment.

"Eh, mistress! ye'll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than toskirl at a flash o' lightning, that gait! Here she is, the bonnybirdie!" exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out intothe passage again.

Blanche's voice reached them, calling for Anne.

Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. "Go!" shewhispered. The next instant she was at the mantle-piece, and hadblown out both the candles.

Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and showedBlanche's figure standing at the door.