I
remain, dear Sir Patrick, yours in great perplexity, Arnold Brinkworth."

Sir Patrick folded the letter, and looked at the two inclosures lying on
the table. His eye was hard, his brow was frowning, as he put his hand
to take up Anne's letter. The letter from Arnold's agent in Edinburgh
lay nearer to him. As it happened, he took that first.

It was short enough, and clearly enough written, to invite a reading
before he put it down again. The lawyer reported that he had made the
necessary inquiries at Glasgow, with this result. Anne had been traced
to The Sheep's Head Hotel. She had lain there utterly helpless, from
illness, until the beginning of September. She had been advertised,
without result, in the Glasgow newspapers. On the 5th of September she
had sufficiently recovered to be able to leave the hotel. She had been
seen at the railway station on the same day--but from that point all
trace of her had been lost once more. The lawyer had accordingly stopped
the proceedings, and now waited further instructions from his client.

This letter was not without its effect in encouraging Sir Patrick to
suspend the harsh and hasty judgment of Anne, which any man, placed
in his present situation, must have been inclined to form. Her illness
claimed its small share of sympathy. Her friendless position--so plainly
and so sadly revealed by the advertising in the newspapers--pleaded
for merciful construction of faults committed, if faults there were.
Gravely, but not angrily, Sir Patrick opened her letter--the letter that
cast a doubt on his niece's marriage.

Thus Anne Silvester wrote:

"GLASGOW, _September_ 5.

"DEAR MR. BRINKWORTH,--Nearly three weeks since I attempted to write to
you from this place. I was seized by sudden illness while I was engaged
over my letter; and from that time to this I have laid helpless in
bed--very near, as they tell me, to death. I was strong enough to be
dressed, and to sit up for a little while yesterday and the day before.
To-day, I have made a better advance toward recovery. I can hold my pen
and control my thoughts. The first use to which I put this improvement
is to write these lines.

"I am going (so far as I know) to surprise--possibly to alarm--you.
There is no escaping from it, for you or for me; it must be done.

"Thinking of how best to introduce what I am now obliged to say, I can
find no better way than this. I must ask you to take your memory back to
a day which we hav