e lost my trumps. You to
play."

Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the lightning flashed into
the room through the ill-closed shutters; the roar of the thunder burst
over the house, and shook it to its foundation. The screaming of some
hysterical female tourist, and the barking of a dog, rose shrill from
the upper floor of the inn. Anne's nerves could support it no longer.
She flung her cards on the table, and sprang to her feet.

"I can play no more," she said. "Forgive me--I am quite unequal to it.
My head burns! my heart stifles me!"

She began to pace the room again. Aggravated by the effect of the storm
on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the false position into which
she and Arnold had allowed themselves to drift had strengthened, by this
time, into a downright horror of their situation which was not to be
endured. Nothing could justify such a risk as the risk they were now
running! They had dined together like married people--and there they
were, at that moment, shut in together, and passing the evening like man
and wife!

"Oh, Mr. Brinkworth!" she pleaded. "Think--for Blanche's sake, think--is
there no way out of this?"

Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards.

"Blanche, again?" he said, with the most exasperating composure. "I
wonder how she feels, in this storm?"

In Anne's excited state, the reply almost maddened her. She turned from
Arnold, and hurried to the door.

"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!"

"And in this weather!" added Arnold.

"_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 ma