The time had passed unheeded. The morning movement in the house had failed to catch her ear. She was first called out of herself to the sense of the present and passing events by the voice of the servant-girl outside the door.
“The master wants you, ma’am, down stairs.”
She rose instantly and put away the little book.
“Is that all the message?” she asked, opening the door.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She followed the girl down stairs; recalling to her memory the strange words addressed to her by Geoffrey, in the presence of the servants, on the evening before. Was she now to know what those words really meant? The doubt would soon be set at rest. “Be the trial what it may,” she thought to herself, “let me bear it as my mother would have borne it.”
The servant opened the door of the dining-room. Breakfast was on the table. Geoffrey was standing at the window. Hester Dethridge was waiting, posted near the door. He came forward—with the nearest approach to gentleness in his manner which she had ever yet seen in it—he came forward, with a set smile on his lips, and offered her his hand!
She had entered the room, prepared (as she believed) for any thing that could happen. She was not prepared for this. She stood speechless, looking at him.
After one glance at her, when she came in, Hester Dethridge looked at him, too—and from that moment never looked away again, as long as Anne remained in the room.
He broke the silence—in a voice that was not like his own; with a furtive restraint in his manner which she had never noticed in it before.