And to Anne you go to-morrow, if I don't see her or hear from her to-day!" This to the man who had passed as Anne's husband at the inn, and who had been forced into the most intimate knowledge of Anne's miserable secret! Arnold rose to put Milton away, with the composure of sheer despair.
Any other secret he might, in the last resort, have confided to the discretion of a third person.

But a woman's secret--with a woman's reputation depending on his keeping it--was not to be confided to any body, under any stress of circumstances whatever.

"If Geoffrey doesn't get me out of _this,_," he thought, "I shall have no choice but to leave Windygates to-morrow." As he replaced the book on the shelf, Lady Lundie entered the library from the garden.
"What are you doing here ?" she said to her step-daughter.
"Improving my mind," replied Blanche.

"Mr.Brinkworth and I have been reading Milton." "Can you condescend so far, after reading Milton all the morning, as to help me with the invitations for the dinner next week ?" "If _you_ can condescend, Lady Lundie, after feeding the poultry all the morning, I must be humility itself after only reading Milton!" With that little interchange of the acid amenities of feminine intercourse, step-mother and step-daughter withdrew to a writing-table, to put the virtue of hospitality in practice together.
Arnold joined his friend at the other end of the library.
Geoffrey was sitting with his elbows on the desk, and his clenched fists dug into his cheeks.

Great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead, and the fragments of a torn letter lay scattered all round him.