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.