“I don’t care!” she cried, wildly. “I won’t let this deception go on. I’ll do what I ought to have done before. Come what may of it, I’ll tell the landlady the truth!”
She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping into the passage--when she stopped, and started violently. Was it possible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actually heard the sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved road outside the 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, ejaculating astonishment in broad Scotch. Anne closed the sitting-room door again, and turned to Arnold--who had risen, in surprise, to his feet.
“Travelers!” she exclaimed. “At this time!”
“_Can_ it be Geoffrey?” she asked--going back to the old vain delusion that he might yet feel for her, and return.
Arnold shook his head. “Not Geoffrey. Whoever else it may be--not Geoffrey!”
Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room--with her cap-ribb ons flying, her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder than ever.
“Eh, mistress!” she said to Anne. “Wha do ye think has driven here to see ye, from Windygates Hoose, and been owertaken in the storm?”
Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question: “Who is it?”
“Wha is’t?” repeated Mrs. Inchbare. “It’s joost the bonny young leddy--Miss Blanche hersel’.”
An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The landlady set it down to the lightning, which flashed into the room again at the same moment.
“Eh, mistress! ye’ll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than to skirl at a flash o’ lightning, that gait! Here she is, the bonny birdie!” exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out into the passage again.
Blanche’s voice reached them, calling for Anne.
Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. “Go!” she whispered. The next instant she was at the mantle-piece, and had blown out both the candles.
Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and showed Blanche’s figure standing at the door.
MRS. INCHBARE was the first person who acted in the emergency. She called for lights; and sternly rebuked the house-maid, who brought them, for not having closed the house door. “Ye feckless ne’er-do-weel!” cried the landlady; “the wind’s blawn the candles oot.”