WHAT had happened in the hours of darkness?

This was Anne's first thought, when the sunlight poured in at herwindow, and woke her the next morning.

She made immediate inquiry of the servant. The girl could onlyspeak for herself. Nothing had occurred to disturb her after shehad gone to bed. Her master was still, she believed, in his room.Mrs. Dethridge was at her work in the kitchen.

Anne went to the kitchen. Hester Dethridge was at her usualoccupation at that time--preparing the breakfast. The slightsigns of animation which Anne had noticed in her when they lastmet appeared no more. The dull look was back again in her stonyeyes; the lifeless torpor possessed all her movements. Asked ifany thing had happened in the night, she slowly shook her stolidhead, slowly made the sign with her hand which signified,"Nothing."

Leaving the kitchen, Anne saw Julius in the front garden. Shewent out and joined him.

"I believe I have to thank your consideration for me for somehours of rest," he said. "It was five in the morning when I woke.I hope you had no reason to regret having left me to sleep? Iwent into Geoffrey's room, and found him stirring. A second doseof the mixture composed him again. The fever has gone. He looksweaker and paler, but in other respects like himself. We willreturn directly to the question of his health. I have somethingto say to you, first, about a change which may be coming in yourlife here."

"Has he consented to the separation?"

"No. He is as obstinate about it as ever. I have placed thematter before him in every possible light. He still refuses,positively refuses, a provision which would make him anindependent man for life."

"Is it the provision he might have had, Lord Holchester, if--?"

"If he had married Mrs. Glenarm? No. It is impossible,consistently with my duty to my mother, and with what I owe tothe position in which my father's death has placed me, that I canoffer him such a fortune as Mrs. Glenarm's. Still, it is ahandsome income which he is mad enough to refuse. I shall persistin pressing it on him. He must and shall take it."

Anne felt no reviving hope roused in her by his last words. Sheturned to another subject.

"You had something to tell me," she said. "You spoke of achange."

"True. The landlady here is a very strange person; and she hasdone a very strange thing. She has given Geoffrey notice to quitthese lodgings."

"Notice to quit?" Anne repeated, in amazement.

"Yes. In a formal letter. She handed it to me open, as soon as Iwas up this morning. It was impossible to get any explanationfrom her. The poor dumb creature simply wrote on her slate: 'Hemay have his money back, if he likes: he shall go!' Greatly to mysurprise (for the woman inspires him with the strongest aversion)Geoffrey refuses to go until his term is up. I have made thepeace between them for to-day. Mrs. Dethridge. very reluctantly,consents to give him four-and-twenty hours. And there the matterrests at present."

"What can her motive be?" said Anne.

"It's useless to inquire. Her mind is evidently off its balance.One thing is clear, Geoffrey shall not keep you here much longer.The coming change will remove you from this dismal place--whichis one thing gained. And it is quite possible that new scenes andnew surroundings may have their influence on Geoffrey for good.His conduct--otherwise quite incomprehensible--may be the resultof some latent nervous irritation which medical help might reach.I don't attempt to disguise from myself or from you, that yourposition here is a most deplorable one. But before we despair ofthe future, let us at least inquire whether there is anyexplanation of my brother's present behavior to be found in thepresent state of my brother's health. I have been consideringwhat the doctor said to me last night. The first thing to do isto get the best medical advice on Geoffrey's case which is to behad. What do you think?"

"I daren't tell you what I think, Lord Holchester. I will try--itis a very small return to make for your kindness--I will try tosee my position with your eyes, not with mine. The best medicaladvice that you can obtain is the advice of Mr. Speedwell. It washe who first made the discovery that your brother was in brokenhealth."

"The very man for our purpose! I will send him here to-day orto-morrow. Is there any thing else I can do for you? I shall seeSir Patrick as soon as I get to town. Have you any message forhim?"

Anne hesitated. Looking attentively at her, Julius noticed thatshe changed color when he mentioned Sir Patrick's name.

"Will you say that I gratefully thank him for the letter whichLady Holchester was so good us to give me last night," shereplied. "And will you entreat him, from me, not to exposehimself, on my account, to--" she hesitated, and finished thesentence with her eyes on the ground--"to what might happen, ifhe came here and insisted on seeing me."

"Does he propose to do that?"

She hesitated again. The little nervous contraction of her lipsat one side of the mouth became more marked than usual. "Hewrites that his anxiety is unendurable, and that he is resolvedto see me," she answered softly.

"He is likely to hold to his resolution, I think," said Julius."When I saw him yesterday, Sir Patrick spoke of you in terms ofadmiration--"

He stopped. The bright tears were glittering on Anne's eyelashes;one of her hands was toying nervously with something hidden(possibly Sir Patrick's letter) in the bosom of her dress. "Ithank him with my whole heart," she said, in low, falteringtones. "But it is best that he should not come here."

"Would you like to write to him?"

"I think I should prefer your giving him my message."

Julius understood that the subject was to proceed no further. SirPatrick's letter had produced some impression on her, which thesensitive nature of the woman seemed to shrink fromacknowledging, even to herself. They turned back to enter thecottage. At the door they were met by a surprise. HesterDethridge, with her bonnet on--dressed, at that hour of themorning, to go out!

"Are you going to market already?" Anne asked.

Hester shook her head.

"When are you coming back?"

Hester wrote on her slate: "Not till the night-time."

Without another word of explanation she pulled her veil down overher face, and made for the gate. The key had been left in thedining-room by Julius, after he had let the doctor out. Hesterhad it in her hand. She opened he gate and closed the door afterher, leaving the key in the lock. At the moment when the doorbanged to Geoffrey appeared in the passage.

"Where's the key?" he asked. "Who's gone out?"

His brother answered the question. He looked backward and forwardsuspiciously between Julius and Anne. "What does she go out forat his time?" he said. "Has she left the house to avoid Me?"

Julius thought this the likely explanation. Geoffrey went downsulkily to the gate to lock it, and returned to them, with thekey in his pocket.

"I'm obliged to be careful of the gate," he said. "Theneighborhood swarms with beggars and tramps. If you want to goout," he added, turning pointedly to Anne, "I'm at your service,as a good husband ought to be."

After a hurried breakfast Julius took his departure. "I don'taccept your refusal," he said to his brother, before Anne. "Youwill see me here again." Geoffrey obstinately repe ated therefusal. "If you come here every day of your life," he said, "itwill be just the same."

The gate closed on Julius. Anne returned again to the solitude ofher own chamber. Geoffrey entered the drawing-room, placed thevolumes of the Newgate Calendar on the table before him, andresumed the reading which he had been unable to continue on theevening before.

Hour after hour he doggedly plodded through one case of murderafter another. He had read one good half of the horrid chronicleof crime before his power of fixing his attention began to failhim. Then he lit his pipe, and went out to think over it in thegarden. However the atrocities of which he had been reading mightdiffer in other respects, there was one terrible point ofresemblance, which he had not anticipated, and in which every oneof the cases agreed. Sooner or later, there was the dead bodyalways certain to be found; always bearing its dumb witness, inthe traces of poison or in the marks of violence, to the crimecommitted on it.

He walked to and fro slowly, still pondering over the problemwhich had first found its way into his mind when he had stoppedin the front garden and had looked up at Anne's window in thedark. "How?" That had been the one question before him, from thetime when the lawyer had annihilated his hopes of a divorce. Itremained the one question still. There was no answer to it in hisown brain; there was no answer to it in the book which he hadbeen consulting. Every thing was in his favor if he could onlyfind out "how." He had got his hated wife up stairs at hismercy--thanks to his refusal of the money which Julius hadoffered to him. He was living in a place absolutely secluded frompublic observation on all sides of it--thanks to his resolutionto remain at the cottage, even after his landlady had insultedhim by sending him a notice to quit. Every thing had beenprepared, every thing had been sacrificed, to the fulfillment ofone purpose--and how to attain that purpose was still the sameimpenetrable mystery to him which it had been from the first!

What was the other alternative? To accept the proposal whichJulius had made. In other words, to give up his vengeance onAnne, and to turn his back on the splendid future which Mrs.Glenarm's devotion still offered to him.

Never! He would go back to the books. He was not at the end ofthem. The slightest hint in the pages which were still to be readmight set his sluggish brain working in the right direction. Theway to be rid of her, without exciting the suspicion of anyliving creature, in the house or out of it, was a way that mightbe found yet.

Could a man, in his position of life, reason in this brutalmanner? could he act in this merciless way? Surely the thought ofwhat he was about to do must have troubled him this time!

Pause for a moment--and look back at him in the past.

Did he feel any remorse when he was plotting the betrayal ofArnold in the garden at Windygates? The sense which feels remorsehad not been put into him. What he is now is the legitimateconsequence of what he was then. A far more serious temptation isnow urging him to commit a far more serious crime. How is he toresist? Will his skill in rowing (as Sir Patrick once put it),his swiftness in running, his admirable capacity and endurance inother physical exercises, help him to win a purely moral victoryover his own selfishness and his own cruelty? No! The moral andmental neglect of himself, which the material tone of publicfeeling about him has tacitly encouraged, has left him at themercy of the worst instincts in his nature--of all that is mostvile and of all that is most dangerous in the composition of thenatural man. With the mass of his fellows, no harm out of thecommon has come of this, because no temptation out of the commonhas passed their way. But with _him,_ the case is reversed. Atemptation out of the common has passed _his_ way. How does itfind him prepared to meet it? It finds him, literally andexactly, what his training has left him, in the presence of anytemptation small or great--a defenseless man.

Geoffrey returned to the cottage. The servant stopped him in thepassage, to ask at what time he wished to dine. Instead ofanswering, he inquired angrily for Mrs. Dethridge. Mrs. Dethridgenot come back.

It was now late in the afternoon, and she had been out since theearly morning. This had never happened before. Vague suspicionsof her, one more monstrous than another, began to rise inGeoffrey's mind. Between the drink and the fever, he had been (asJulius had told him) wandering in his mind during a part of thenight. Had he let any thing out in that condition? Had Hesterheard it? And was it, by any chance, at the bottom of her longabsence and her notice to quit? He determined--without lettingher see that he suspected her--to clear up that doubt as soon ashis landlady returned to the house.

The evening came. It was past nine o'clock before there was aring at the bell. The servant came to ask for the key. Geoffreyrose to go to the gate himself--and changed his mind before heleft the room. _Her_ suspicions might be roused (supposing it tobe Hester who was waiting for admission) if he opened the gate toher when the servant was there to do it. He gave the girl thekey, and kept out of sight.

* * * * * *

"Dead tired!"--the servant said to herself, seeing her mistressby the light of the lamp over the gate.

"Dead tired!"--Geoffrey said to himself, observing Hestersuspiciously as she passed him in the passage on her way upstairs to take off her bonnet in her own room.

"Dead tired!"--Anne said to herself, meeting Hester on the upperfloor, and receiving from her a letter in Blanche's handwriting,delivered to the mistress of the cottage by the postman, who hadmet her at her own gate.

Having given the letter to Anne, Hester Dethridge withdrew to herbedroom.

Geoffrey closed the door of the drawing-room, in which thecandles were burning, and went into the dining-room, in whichthere was no light. Leaving the door ajar, he waited to intercepthis landlady on her way back to her supper in the kitchen.

Hester wearily secured her door, wearily lit the candles, wearilyput the pen and ink on the table. For some minutes after this shewas compelled to sit down, and rally her strength and fetch herbreath. After a little she was able to remove her upper clothing.This done she took the manuscript inscribed, "My Confession," outof the secret pocket of her stays--turned to the last leaf asbefore--and wrote another entry, under the entry made on theprevious night.

"This morning I gave him notice to quit, and offered him hismoney back if he wanted it. He refuses to go. He shall goto-morrow, or I will burn the place over his head. All throughto-day I have avoided him by keeping out of the house. No rest toease my mind, and no sleep to close my eyes. I humbly bear mycross as long as my strength will let me."

At those words the pen dropped from her fingers. Her head noddedon her breast. She roused herself with a start. Sleep was theenemy she dreaded: sleep brought dreams.

She unfastened the window-shutters and looked out at the night.The peaceful moonlight was shining over the garden. The cleardepths of the night sky were soothing and beautiful to look at.What! Fading already? clouds? darkness? No! Nearly asleep oncemore. She roused herself again, with a start. There was themoonlight, and there was the garden as bright under it as ever.

Dreams or no dreams, it was useless to fight longer against theweariness that overpowered her. She closed the shutters, and wentback to the bed; and put her Confession in its customary place atnight, under her pillow.

She looked round the room--and shuddered. Every corner of it wasfilled with the terrible memories of the past night. She mightwake from the torture of the dreams to find the terror of theApparition watching at her bedside. Was there no remedy? noblessed safeguard under which she might tranquilly resign herselfto sleep? A thought crossed her mind. The good book--the Bible.If she slept with the Bible under her pillow, there was hope inthe good book--the hope of sleeping in peace.

It was not worth while to put on the gown and the stays which shehad taken off. Her shawl would cover her. It was equally needlessto take the candle. The lower shutters would not be closed atthat hour; and if they were, she could lay her hand on the Bible,in its place on the parlor book-shelf, in the dark.

She removed the Confession from under the pillow. Not even for aminute could she prevail on herself to leave it in one room whileshe was away from it in another. With the manuscript folded up,and hidden in her hand, she slowly descended the stairs again.Her knees trembled under her. She was obliged to hold by thebanister, with the hand that was free.

Geoffrey observed her from the dining-room, on her way down thestairs. He waited to see what she did, before he showed himself,and spoke to her. Instead of going on into the kitchen, shestopped short, and entered the parlor. Another suspiciouscircumstance! What did she want in the parlor, without a candle,at that time of night?

She went to the book-case--her dark figure plainly visible in themoonlight that flooded the little room. She staggered and put herhand to her head; giddy, to all appearance, from extreme fatigue.She recovered herself, and took a book from the shelf. She leanedagainst the wall after she had possessed herself of the book. Tooweary, as it seemed, to get up stairs again without a littlerest. Her arm-chair was near her. Better rest, for a moment ortwo, to be had in that than could be got by leaning against thewall. She sat down heavily in the chair, with the book on herlap. One of her arms hung over the arm of the chair, with thehand closed, apparently holding something.

Her head nodded on her breast--recovered itself--and sank gentlyon the cushion at the back of the chair. Asleep? Fast asleep.

In less than a minute the muscles of the closed hand that hungover the arm of the chair slowly relaxed. Something white slippedout of her hand, and lay in the moonlight on the floor.

Geoffrey took off his heavy shoes, and entered the roomnoiselessly in his stockings. He picked up the white thing on thefloor. It proved to be a collection of several sheets of thinpaper, neatly folded together, and closely covered with writing.

Writing? As long as she was awake she had kept it hidden in herhand. Why hide it?

Had he let out any thing to compromise himself when he waslight-headed with the fever the night before? and had she takenit down in writing to produce against him? Possessed by guiltydistrust, even that monstrous doubt assumed a look of probabilityto Geoffrey's mind. He left the parlor as noiselessly as he hadentered it, and made for the candle-light in the drawing-room,determined to examine the manuscript in his hand.

After carefully smoothing out the folded leaves on the table, heturned to the first page, and read these lines.