t the flaming curtains; and had drawn back, stolidly submissive, into
a corner to wait the event. There she had stood--to all appearance,
utterly indifferent to the possible destruction of her own cottage. The
fire extinguished, she still waited impenetrably in her corner, while
the chest of drawers and the boxes were being moved--then locked the
door, without even a passing glance at the scorched ceiling and the
burned bed-furniture--put the key into her pocket--and went back to her
room.

Anne had hitherto not shared the conviction felt by most other persons
who were brought into contact with Hester Dethridge, that the woman's
mind was deranged. After what she had just seen, however, the general
impression became her impression too. She had thought of putting certain
questions to Hester, when they were left together, as to the origin of
the fire. Reflection decided her on saying nothing, for that night at
least. She crossed the passage, and entered the spare room--the room
which she had declined to occupy on her arrival at the cottage, and
which she was obliged to sleep in now.

She was instantly struck by a change in the disposition of the furniture
of the room.

The bed had been moved. The head--set, when she had last seen it,
against the side wall of the cottage--was placed now against the
partition wall which separated the room from Geoffrey's room. This new
arrangement had evidently been effected with a settled purpose of some
sort. The hook in the ceiling which supported the curtains (the bed,
unlike the bed in the other room, having no canopy attached to it) had
been moved so as to adapt itself to the change that had been made. The
chairs and the washhand-stand, formerly placed against the partition
wall, were now, as a matter of necessity, shifted over to the vacant
space against the side wall of the cottage. For the rest, no other
alteration was visible in any part of the room.

In Anne's situation, any event not immediately intelligible on the face
of it, was an event to be distrusted. Was there a motive for the change
in the position of the bed? And was it, by any chance, a motive in which
she was concerned?

The doubt had barely occurred to her, before a startling suspicion
succeeded it. Was there some secret purpose to be answered by making her
sleep in the spare room? Did the question which the servant had heard
Geoffrey put to Hester, on the previous night, refer to this? Had the
fire which had so