"Mr. Chandos! Do you know that there are mounted police outside the house?"
He rose from his seat, looking at her as if he thought she must be dreaming.
"Mounted police!" he repeated.
"They are riding quietly up, three of them; I saw their sabres flash in the starlight. I had gone to the library to get a book for Mrs. Chandos; she having sent to Hill for the key; when I thought I heard a noise as of horsemen, and opened the shutters to look out. Oh, Mr. Chandos! what can they have come for? They once rode up to a house where I was staying, in the same silent manner; it was to make investigations in a charge of murder."
I had seen Mr. Chandos turn pale before; you have heard me say so; but I never saw a tinge so livid in man or woman as that which overspread his countenance now. He retained nevertheless his self-possession; ay, and that quiet tone of command which somehow is rarely disobeyed.
"You will be so kind as return immediately to Mrs. Chandos," he calmly said to Mrs. Penn. "Close the doors of the east wing as soon as you have entered, and keep her attention amused. She is excitable—as you by this time probably know—and this visit must be kept from her cognizance."
Allowing no time for answer or dissent, he took Mrs. Penn by the hand somewhat peremptorily, and watched her go upstairs. Then he stole to the hall-door and put up its bar without noise. As for me, I do not know that I had ever in my whole life felt so sick and frightened. All the past scene at Mr. Edwin Barley's, when the mounted police had come there, recurred to me: and Mr. Chandos's manner completed the dread. I put my hands on his arm; reticence was forgotten in the moment's terror; as he stood listening in the middle of the oak-parlour.
"Tell me what it is! Tell me!"
"Oh, Anne, this is an awful blow," he said, in the deepest agitation, as if he had never heard my words. "I joked about the police coming to take you in charge, but——"
"Not for me! They cannot have come for me!" I reiterated foolishly, in my confused alarm.