at
home. That was all. The letter had evidently been written under Sir
Patrick's advice.

Geoffrey handed it back, after first waiting a moment to think.

"My father died yesterday," he said. "My wife can't receive visitors
before he is buried. I don't wish to force your inclinations. I only say
I can't let visitors in here before the funeral--except my own family.
Send a note down stairs. The lad will take it to your friend when he
goes to London." With those words he left.

An appeal to the proprieties of life, in the mouth of Geoffrey Delamayn,
could only mean one of two things. Either he had spoken in brutal
mockery--or he had spoken with some ulterior object in view. Had he
seized on the event of his father's death as a pretext for isolating his
wife from all communication with the outer world? Were there reasons,
which had not yet asserted themselves, for his dreading the result, if
he allowed Anne to communicate with her friends?

The hour wore on, and Hester Dethridge appeared again. The lad was
waiting for Anne's orders for her mourning, and for her note to Mrs.
Arnold Brinkworth.

Anne wrote the orders and the note. Once more the horrible slate
appeared when she had done, between the writing paper and her eyes, with
the hard lines of warning pitilessly traced on it. "He has locked the
gate. When there's a ring we are to come to him for the key. He has
written to a woman. Name outside the letter, Mrs. Glenarm. He has had
more brandy. Like my husband. Mind yourself."

The one way out of the high walls all round the cottage locked. Friends
forbidden to see her. Solitary imprisonment, with her husband for a
jailer. Before she had been four-and-twenty hours in the cottage it had
come to that. And what was to follow?

She went back mechanically to the window. The sight of the outer world,
the occasional view of a passing vehicle, helped to sustain her.

The lad appeared in the front garden departing to perform his errand to
London. Geoffrey went with him to open the gate, and called after him,
as he passed through it, "Don't forget the books!"

The "books?" What "books?" Who wanted them? The slightest thing now
roused Anne's suspicion. For hours afterward the books haunted her mind.

He secured the gate and came back again. He stopped under Anne's window
and called to her. She showed herself. "When you want air and exercise,"
he said, "the back garden is at your own disposal." He put the key of
the gate