ON leaving Lady Lundie's house, Geoffrey called the first emptycab that passed him. He opened the door, and signed to Anne toenter the vehicle. She obeyed him mechanically. He placed himselfon the seat opposite to her, and told the man to drive to Fulham.

The cab started on its journey; husband and wife preservingabsolute silence. Anne laid her head back wearily, and closed hereyes. Her strength had broken down under the effort which hadsustained her from the beginning to the end of the inquiry. Herpower of thinking was gone. She felt nothing, knew nothing,feared nothing. Half in faintness, half in slumber, she had lostall sense of her own terrible position before the first fiveminutes of the journey to Fulham had come to an end.

Sitting opposite to her, savagely self-concentrated in his ownthoughts, Geoffrey roused himself on a sudden. An idea had sprungto life in his sluggish brain. He put his head out of the windowof the cab, and directed the driver to turn back, and go to anhotel near the Great Northern Railway.

Resuming his seat, he looked furtively at Anne. She neither movednor opened her eyes--she was, to all appearance, unconscious ofwhat had happened. He observed her attentively. Was she reallyill? Was the time coming when he would be freed from her? Hepondered over that question--watching her closely. Little bylittle the vile hope in him slowly died away, and a vilesuspicion took its place. What, if this appearance of illness wasa pretense? What, if she was waiting to throw him off his guard,and escape from him at the first opportunity? He put his head outof the window again, and gave another order to the driver. Thecab diverged from the direct route, and stopped at a public housein Holborn, kept (under an assumed name) by Perry the trainer.

Geoffrey wrote a line in pencil on his card, and sent it into thehouse by the driver. After waiting some minutes, a lad appearedand touched his hat. Geoffrey spoke to him, out of the window, inan under-tone. The lad took his place on the box by the driver.The cab turned back, and took the road to the hotel near theGreat Northern Railway.

Arrived at the place, Geoffrey posted the lad close at the doorof the. cab, and pointed to Anne, still reclining with closedeyes; still, as it seemed, too weary to lift her head, too faintto notice any thing that happened. "If she attempts to get out,stop her, and send for me." With those parting directions heentered the hotel, and asked for Mr. Moy.

Mr. Moy was in the house; he had just returned from PortlandPlace. He rose, and bowed coldly, when Geoffrey was shown intohis sitting-room.

"What is your business with me?" he asked.

"I've had a notion come into my head," said Geoffrey. "And I wantto speak to you about it directly."

"I must request you to consult some one else. Consider me, if youplease, as having withdrawn from all further connection with youraffairs."

Geoffrey looked at him in stolid surprise.

"Do you mean to say you're going to leave me in the lurch?" heasked.

"I mean to say that I will take no fresh step in any business ofyours," answered Mr. Moy, firmly. "As to the future, I haveceased to be your legal adviser. As to the past, I shallcarefully complete the formal duties toward you which remain tobe done. Mrs. Inchbare and Bishopriggs are coming here byappointment, at six this evening, to receive the money due tothem before they go back. I shall return to Scotland myself bythe night mail. The persons referred to, in the matter of thepromise of marriage, by Sir Patrick, are all in Scotland. I willtake their evidence as to the handwriting, and as to the questionof residence in the North--and I will send it to you in writtenform. That done, I shall have done all. I decline to advise youin any future step which you propose to take."

After reflecting for a moment, Geoffrey put a last question.

"You said Bishopriggs and the woman would be here at six thisevening."

"Yes."

"Where are they to be found before that?"

Mr. Moy wrote a few words on a slip of paper, and handed it toGeoffrey. "At their lodgings," he said. "There is the address."

Geoffrey took the address, and left the room. Lawyer and clientparted without a word on either side.

Returning to the cab, Geoffrey found the lad steadily waiting athis post.

"Has any thing happened?"

"The lady hasn't moved, Sir, since you left her."

"Is Perry at the public house?"

"Not at this time, Sir."

"I want a lawyer. Do you know who Perry's lawyer is?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And where he is to be found?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Get up on the box, and tell the man where to drive to."

The cab went on again along the Euston Road, and stopped at ahouse in a side-street, with a professional brass plate on thedoor. The lad got down, and came to the window.

"Here it is, Sir."

"Knock at the door, and see if he is at home."

He prove d to be at home. Geoffrey entered the house, leaving hisemissary once more on the watch. The lad noticed that the ladymoved this time. She shivered as if she felt cold--opened hereyes for a moment wearily, and looked out through thewindow--sighed, and sank back again in the corner of the cab.

After an absence of more than half an hour Geoffrey came outagain. His interview with Perry's lawyer appeared to haverelieved his mind of something that had oppressed it. He oncemore ordered the driver to go to Fulham--opened the door to getinto the cab--then, as it seemed, suddenly recollectedhimself--and, calling the lad down from the box, ordered him toget inside, and took his place by the driver.

As the cab started he looked over his shoulder at Anne throughthe front window. "Well worth trying," he said to himself. "It'sthe way to be even with her. And it's the way to be free."

They arrived at the cottage. Possibly, repose had restored Anne'sstrength. Possibly, the sight of the place had roused theinstinct of self-preservation in her at last. To Geoffrey'ssurprise, she left the cab without assistance. When he opened thewooden gate, with his own key, she recoiled from it, and lookedat him for the first time.

He pointed to the entrance.

"Go in," he said.

"On what terms?" she asked, without stirring a step.

Geoffrey dismissed the cab; and sent the lad in, to wait forfurther orders. These things done, he answered her loudly andbrutally the moment they were alone:

"On any terms I please."

"Nothing will induce me," she said, firmly, "to live with you asyour wife. You may kill me--but you will never bend me to that."

He advanced a step--opened his lips--and suddenly checkedhimself. He waited a while, turning something over in his mind.When he spoke again, it was with marked deliberation andconstraint--with the air of a man who was repeating words putinto his lips, or words prepared beforehand.

"I have something to tell you in the presence of witnesses," hesaid. "I don't ask you, or wish you, to see me in the cottagealone."

She started at the change in him. His sudden composure, and hissudden nicety in the choice of words, tried her courage far moreseverely than it had been tried by his violence of the momentbefore.

He waited her decision, still pointing through the gate. Shetrembled a little--steadied herself again--and went in. The lad,waiting in the front garden, followed her.

He threw open the drawing-room door, on the left-hand side of thepassage. She entered the room. The servant-girl appeared. He saidto her, "Fetch Mrs. Dethridge; and come back with her yourself."Then he went into the room; the lad, by his own directions,following him in; and the door being left wide open.

Hester Dethridge came out from the kitchen with the girl behindher. At the sight of Anne, a faint and momentary change passedover the stony stillness of her face. A dull light glimmered inher eyes. She slowly nodded her head. A dumb sound, vaguelyexpressive of something like exultation or relief, escaped herlips.

Geoffrey spoke--once more, with marked deliberation andconstraint; once more, with the air of repeating something whichhad been prepared beforehand. He pointed to Anne.

"This woman is my wife," he said. "In the presence of you three,as witnesses, I tell her that I don't forgive her. I have broughther here--having no other place in which I can trust her tobe--to wait the issue of proceedings, undertaken in defense of myown honor and good name. While she stays here, she will liveseparate from me, in a room of her own. If it is necessary for meto communicate with her, I shall only see her in the presence ofa third person. Do you all understand me?"

Hester Dethridge bowed her head. The other two answered,"Yes"--and turned to go out.

Anne rose. At a sign from Geoffrey, the servant and the ladwaited in the room to hear what she had to say.

"I know nothing in my conduct," she said, addressing herself toGeoffrey, "which justifies you in telling these people that youdon't forgive me. Those words applied by you to me are an insult.I am equally ignorant of what you mean when you speak ofdefending your good name. All I understand is, that we areseparate persons in this house, and that I am to have a room ofmy own. I am grateful, whatever your motives may be, for thearrangement that you have proposed. Direct one of these two womento show me my room."

Geoffrey turned to Hester Dethridge.

"Take her up stairs," he said; "and let her pick which room shepleases. Give her what she wants to eat or drink. Bring down theaddress of the place where her luggage is. The lad here will goback by railway, and fetch it. That's all. Be off."

Hester went out. Anne followed her up the stairs. In the passageon the upper floor she stopped. The dull light flickered againfor a moment in her eyes. She wrote on her slate, and held it upto Anne, with these words on it: "I knew you would come back.It's not over yet between you and him." Anne made no reply. Shewent on writing, with something faintly like a smile on her thin,colorless lips. "I know something of bad husbands. Yours is asbad a one as ever stood in shoes. He'll try you." Anne made aneffort to stop her. "Don't you see how tired I am?" she said,gently. Hester Dethridge dropped the slate--looked with a steadyand uncompassionate attention in Anne's face--nodded her head, asmuch as to say, "I see it now"--and led the way into one of theempty rooms.

It was the front bedroom, over the drawing-room. The first glanceround showed it to be scrupulously clean, and solidly andtastelessly furnished. The hideous paper on the walls, thehideous carpet on the floor, were both of the best quality. Thegreat heavy mahogany bedstead, with its curtains hanging from ahook in the ceiling, and with its clumsily carved head and footon the same level, offered to the view the anomalous spectacle ofFrench design overwhelmed by English execution. The mostnoticeable thing in the room was the extraordinary attentionwhich had been given to the defense of the door. Besides theusual lock and key, it possessed two solid bolts, fasteninginside at the top and the bottom. It had been one among the manyeccentric sides of Reuben Limbrick's character to live inperpetual dread of thieves breaking into his cottage at night.All the outer doors and all the window shutters were solidlysheathed with iron, and had alarm-bells attached to them on a newprinciple. Every one of the bedrooms possessed its two bolts onthe inner side of the door. And, to crown all, on the roof of thecottage was a little belfry, containing a bell large enough tomake itself heard at the Fulham police station. In ReubenLimbrick's time the rope had communicated with his bedroom. Ithung now against the wall, in the passage outside.

Looking from one to the other of the objects around her, Anne'seyes rested on the partition wall which divided the room from theroom next to it. The wall was not broken by a door ofcommunication, it had nothing placed against it but awash-hand-stand and two chairs.

"Who sleeps in the next room?" said Anne.

Hester Dethridge pointed down to the drawing-room in which theyhad left Geoffrey, Geoffrey slept in the room.

Anne led the way out again into the passage.

"Show me the second room," she said.

The second room was also in front of the house. More ugliness (offirst-rate quality) in the paper and the carpet. Another heavymahogany bedstead; but, this time, a bedstead with a canopyattached to the head of it--supporting its own curtains.Anticipating Anne's inquiry, on this occasion, Hester lookedtoward the next room, at the back of the cottage, and pointed toherself. Anne at once decided on choosing the second room; it wasthe farthest from Geoffrey. Hester waited while she wrote theaddress at which her luggage would be found (at the house of themusical agent), and then, having applied for, and received herdirections as to the evening meal which she should send upstairs, quitted the room.

Left alone, Anne secured the door, and threw herself on the bed.Still too weary to exert her mind, still physically incapable ofrealizing the helplessness and the peril of her position, sheopened a locket that hung from her neck, kissed the portrait ofher mother and the portrait of Blanche placed opposite to eachother inside it, and sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile Geoffrey repeated his final orders to the lad, at thecottage gate.

"When you have got the luggage, you are to go to the lawyer. Ifhe can come here to-night, you will show him the way. If he can'tcome, you will bring me a letter from him. Make any mistake inthis, and it will be the worst day's work you ever did in yourlife. Away with you, and don't lose the train."

The lad ran off. Geoffrey waited, looking after him, and turningover in his mind what had been done up to that time.

"All right, so far," he said to himself. "I didn't ride in thecab with her. I told her before witnesses I didn't forgive her,and why I had her in the house. I've put her in a room byherself. And if I _must_ see her, I see her with Hester Dethridgefor a witness. My part's done--let the lawyer do his."

He strolled round into the back garden, and lit his pipe. After awhile, as the twilight faded, he saw a light in Hester'ssitting-room on the ground-floor. He went to the window. Hesterand the servant-girl were both there at work. "Well?" he asked."How about the woman up stairs?" Hester's slate, aided by thegirl's tongue, told him all about "the woman" that was to betold. They had taken up to her room tea and an omelet; and theyhad been obliged to wake her from a sleep. She had eaten a littleof the omelet, and had drunk eagerly of the tea. They had gone upagain to take the tray down. She had returned to the bed. She wasnot asleep--only dull and heavy. Made no remark. Looked cleanworn out. We left her a light; and we let her be. Such was thereport. After listening to it, without making any remark,Geoffrey filled a second pipe, and resumed his walk. The timewore on. It began to feel chilly in the garden. The rising windswept audibly over the open lands round the cottage; the starstwinkled their last; nothing was to be seen overhead but theblack void of night. More rain coming. Geoffrey went indoors.

An evening newspaper was on the dining-room table. The candleswere lit. He sat down, and tried to read. No! There was nothingin the newspaper that he cared about. The time for hearing fromthe lawyer was drawing nearer and nearer. Reading was of no use.Sitting still was of no use. He got up, and went out in the frontof the cottage--strolled to the gate--opened it--and looked idlyup and down the road.

But one living creature was visible by the light of the gas-lampover the gate. The creature came nearer, and proved to be thepostman going his last round, with the last delivery for thenight. He came up to the gate with a letter in his hand.

"The Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn?"

"All right."

He took the letter from the postman, and went back into thedining-room. Looking at the address by the light of the candles,he recognized the handwriting of Mrs. Glenarm. "To congratulateme on my marriage!" he said to himself, bitterly, and opened theletter.

Mrs. Glenarm's congratulations were expressed in these terms:

MY ADORED GEOFFREY,--I have heard all. My beloved one! my own!you are sacrificed to the vilest wretch that walks the earth, andI have lost you! How is it that I live after hearing it? How isit that I can think, and write, with my brain on fire, and myheart broken! Oh, my angel, there is a purpose that supportsme--pure, beautiful, worthy of us both. I live, Geoffrey--I liveto dedicate myself to the adored idea of You. My hero! my first,last, love! I will marry no other man. I will live and die--I vowit solemnly on my bended knees--I will live and die true to You.I am your Spiritual Wife. My beloved Geoffrey! _she_ can't comebetween us, there--_she_ can never rob you of my heart'sunalterable fidelity, of my soul's unearthly devotion. I am yourSpiritual Wife! Oh, the blameless luxury of writing those words!Write back to me, beloved one, and say you feel it too. Vow it,idol of my heart, as I have vowed it. Unalterable fidelity!unearthly devotion! Never, never will I be the wife of any otherman! Never, never will I forgive the woman who has come betweenus! Yours ever and only; yours with the stainless passion thatburns on the altar of the heart; yours, yours, yours--E. G."

This outbreak of hysterical nonsense--in itself simplyridiculous--assumed a serious importance in its effect onGeoffrey. It associated the direct attainment of his owninterests with the gratification of his vengeance on Anne. Tenthousand a year self-dedicated to him--and nothing to prevent hisputting out his hand and taking it but the woman who had caughthim in her trap, the woman up stairs who had fastened herself onhim for life!

He put the letter into his pocket. "Wait till I hear from thelawyer," he said to himself. "The easiest way out of it is _that_way. And it's the law."

He looked impatiently at his watch. As he put it back again inhis pocket there was a ring at the bell. Was it the lad bringingthe luggage? Yes. And, with it, the lawyer's report? No. Betterthan that--the lawyer himself.

"Come in!" cried Geoffrey, meeting his visitor at the door.

The lawyer entered the dining-room. The candle-light revealed toview a corpulent, full-lipped, bright-eyed man--with a strain ofnegro blood in his yellow face, and with unmistakable traces inhis look and manner of walking habitually in the dirtiestprofessional by-ways of the law.

"I've got a little place of my own in your neighborhood," hesaid. "And I thought I would look in myself, Mr. Delamayn, on myway home."

"Have you seen the witnesses?"

"I have examined them both, Sir. First, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr.Bishopriggs together. Next, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr. Bishopriggsseparately."

"Well?"

"Well, Sir, the result is unfavorable, I am sorry to say."

"What do you mean?"

"Neither the one nor the other of them, Mr. Delamayn, can givethe evidence we want. I have made sure of that."

"Made sure of that? You have made an infernal mess of it! Youdon't understand the case!"

The mulatto lawyer smiled. The rudeness of his client appearedonly to amuse him.

"Don't I?" he said. "Suppose you tell me where I am wrong aboutit? Here it is in outline only. On the fourteenth of August lastyour wife was at an inn in Scotland. A gentleman named ArnoldBrinkworth joined her there. He represented himself to be herhusband, and he staid with her till the next morning. Startingfrom those facts, the object you have in view is to sue for aDivorce from your wife. You make Mr. Arnold Brinkworth theco-respondent. And you produce in evidence the waiter and thelandlady of the inn. Any thing wrong, Sir, so far?"

Nothing wrong. At one cowardly stroke to cast Anne disgraced onthe world, and to set himself free--there, plainly and trulystated, was the scheme which he had devised, when he had turnedback on the way to Fulham to consult Mr. Moy.

"So much for the case," resumed the lawyer. "Now for what I havedone on receiving your instructions. I have examined thewitnesses; and I have had an interview (not a very pleasant one)with Mr. Moy. The result of those two proceedings is brieflythis. First discovery: In assuming the character of the lady'shusband Mr. Brinkworth was acting under your directions--whichtells dead against _you._ Second discovery: Not the slightestimpropriety of conduct, not an approach even to harmlessfamiliarity, was detected by either of the witnesses, while thelady and gentleman were together at the inn. There is literallyno evidence to produce against them, except that they _were_together--in two rooms. How are you to assume a guilty purpose,when you can't prove an approach to a guilty act? You can no moretake such a case as that into Court than you can jump over theroof of this cottage."

He looked hard at his client, expecting to receive a violentreply. His client agreeably disappointed him. A very strangeimpression appeared to have been produced on th is reckless andheadstrong man. He got up quietly; he spoke with perfect outwardcomposure of face and manner when he said his next words.

"Have you given up the case?"

"As things are at present, Mr. Delamayn, there is no case."

"And no hope of my getting divorced from her?"

"Wait a moment. Have your wife and Mr. Brinkworth met nowheresince they were together at the Scotch inn?"

"Nowhere."

"As to the future, of course I can't say. As to the past, thereis no hope of your getting divorced from her."

"Thank you. Good-night."

"Good-night, Mr. Delamayn."

Fastened to her for life--and the law powerless to cut the knot.

He pondered over that result until he had thoroughly realized itand fixed it in his mind. Then he took out Mrs. Glenarm's letter,and read it through again, attentively, from beginning to end.

Nothing could shake her devotion to him. Nothing would induce herto marry another man. There she was--in her own words--dedicatedto him: waiting, with her fortune at her own disposal, to be hiswife. There also was his father, waiting (so far as _he_ knew, inthe absence of any tidings from Holchester House) to welcome Mrs.Glenarm as a daughter-in-law, and to give Mrs. Glenarm's husbandan income of his own. As fair a prospect, on all sides, as mancould desire. And nothing in the way of it but the woman who hadcaught him in her trap--the woman up stairs who had fastenedherself on him for life.

He went out in the garden in the darkness of the night.

There was open communication, on all sides, between the backgarden and the front. He walked round and round the cottage--nowappearing in a stream of light from a window; now disappearingagain in the darkness. The wind blew refreshingly over his barehead. For some minutes he went round and round, faster andfaster, without a pause. When he stopped at last, it was in frontof the cottage. He lifted his head slowly, and looked up at thedim light in the window of Anne's room.

"How?" he said to himself. "That's the question. How?"

He went indoors again, and rang the bell. The servant-girl whoanswered it started back at the sight of him. His florid colorwas all gone. His eyes looked at her without appearing to seeher. The perspiration was standing on his forehead in great heavydrops.

"Are you ill, Sir?" said the girl.

He told her, with an oath, to hold her tongue and bring thebrandy. When she entered the room for the second time, he wasstanding with his back to her, looking out at the night. He nevermoved when she put the bottle on the table. She heard himmuttering as if he was talking to himself.

The same difficulty which had been present to his mind in secretunder Anne's window was present to his mind still.

How? That was the problem to solve. How?

He turned to the brandy, and took counsel of that.