enetrable insensibility, the same primitively natural
condition of the moral being, prevented him from being troubled by the
slightest sense of pity for Anne. "She's out of my way!" was his first
thought. "She's provided for, without any trouble to Me!" was his second.
He was not in the least uneasy about her. Not the slightest doubt
crossed his mind that, when once she had realized her own situation,
when once she saw herself placed between the two alternatives of facing
her own ruin or of claiming Arnold as a last resource, she would claim
Arnold. She would do it as a matter of course; because _he_ would have
done it in her place.

But he wanted it over. He was wild, as he paced round and round the
walnut-tree, to hurry on the crisis and be done with it. Give me my
freedom to go to the other woman, and to train for the foot-race--that's
what I want. _They_ injured? Confusion to them both! It's I who am
injured by them. They are the worst enemies I have! They stand in my
way.

How to be rid of them? There was the difficulty. He had made up his mind
to be rid of them that day. How was he to begin?

There was no picking a quarrel with Arnold, and so beginning with _him._
This course of proceeding, in Arnold's position toward Blanche, would
lead to a scandal at the outset--a scandal which would stand in the way
of his making the right impression on Mrs. Glenarm. The woman--lonely
and friendless, with her sex and her position both against her if _she_
tried to make a scandal of it--the woman was the one to begin with.
Settle it at once and forever with Anne; and leave Arnold to hear of it
and deal with it, sooner or later, no matter which.

How was he to break it to her before the day was out?

By going to the inn and openly addressing her to her face as Mrs. Arnold
Brinkworth? No! He had had enough, at Windygates, of meeting her face
to face. The easy way was to write to her, and send the letter, by the
first messenger he could find, to the inn. She might appear afterward at
Windygates; she might follow him to his brother's; she might appeal to
his father. It didn't matter; he had got the whip-hand of her now. "You
are a married woman." There was the one sufficient answer, which was
strong enough to back him in denying any thing!

He made out the letter in his own mind. "Something like this would do,"
he thought, as he went round and round the walnut-tree: "You may be
surprised not to have seen me. You have only you