This reply, with its allusion to the governess, Anne knew was the severest thing she could say; so, with a self-satisfied look at Frances' flushed face, she went away to put on her things.
But her water-proof cloak could not be found—was nowhere. Anne was a great deal too independent to summon servants to her aid, so she must needs go down stairs to look for it, remembering, as she went, that she had hung it on the stand in the hall to dry. She was returning upstairs with it on her arm, when Charles's voice sounded in the morning-room. Anne hesitated a moment; but Frances's low mysterious tone was too great a temptation to be resisted, and with a half-frightened guilty look, she drew near the door and listened, thinking, perhaps, the end to be attained justified the means she was employing in attaining it.
"My heart misgives me sometimes as to whether I did right in leaving her so precipitately, without a word," Charles was saying.
"What would have been the use of speaking?" was the rejoinder, "when she so evidently cared, or rather showed her love for Mr. Vavasour."
Anne could not hear the reply, and again Frances spoke.
"I thought I never should recover her from that death-like faint."
"If any woman deceived me, she did. I could have sworn she cared for me, on that very evening. How she trembled when I took her hand," said Charles.
Again Anne was at fault with the answer; but whatever it was Charles's reply rang loud and clear—
"I hate that fellow Vavasour!" he said.
"Hush! hush!" said Frances; and Anne could imagine she was entreating him to talk lower; then the rustle of her dress was heard, and swift as thought Anne flew lightly and softly up the thickly-carpeted stairs. As she paused at the top, breathless and panting, she heard the door below gently closed.