If she
doesn't come and if I don't hear from her, then the mystery of her
silence must be cleared up; and You must do it!"
"I!"
"Don't make difficulties! If you can't find your way to Craig Fernie, I
can help you. As for Anne, you know what a charming person she is, and
you know she will receive you perfectly, for my sake. I must and will
have some news of her. I can't break the laws of the household a second
time. Sir Patrick sympathizes, but he won't stir. Lady Lundie is a
bitter enemy. The servants are threatened with the loss of their places
if any one of them goes near Anne. There is nobody but you. 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.
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