all civilized terrors—­the terror of appearing unfavorably in the newspapers—­was a sensation absolutely unknown to the Empress of the Inn.  You lost your temper, and threatened to send her bill for exhibition in the public journals.  Mistress Inchbare raised no objection to your taking any course you pleased with it.  “Eh, man! send the bill whar’ ye like, as long as ye pay it first.  There’s nae such thing as a newspaper ever darkens my doors.  Ye’ve got the Auld and New Testaments in your bedchambers, and the natural history o’ Pairthshire on the coffee-room table—­and if that’s no’ reading eneugh for ye, ye may een gae back South again, and get the rest of it there.”

This was the inn at which Anne Silvester had appeared alone, with nothing but a little bag in her hand.  This was the woman whose reluctance to receive her she innocently expected to overcome by showing her purse.

“Mention your charge for the rooms,” she said.  “I am willing to pay for them beforehand.”

Her majesty, Mrs. Inchbare, never even looked at her subject’s poor little purse.

“It just comes to this, mistress,” she answered.  “I’m no’ free to tak’ your money, if I’m no’ free to let ye the last rooms left in the hoose.  The Craig Fernie hottle is a faimily hottle—­and has its ain gude name to keep up.  Ye’re ower-well-looking, my young leddy, to be traveling alone.”

The time had been when Anne would have answered sharply enough.  The hard necessities of her position made her patient now.

“I have already told you,” she said, “my husband is coming here to join me.”  She sighed wearily as she repeated her ready-made story—­and dropped into the nearest chair, from sheer inability to stand any longer.

Mistress Inchbare looked at her, with the exact measure of compassionate interest which she might have shown if she had been looking at a stray dog who had fallen footsore at the door of the inn.

“Weel! weel! sae let it be.  Bide awhile, and rest ye.  We’ll no’ chairge ye for that—­and we’ll see if your husband comes.  I’ll just let the rooms, mistress, to him,, instead o’ lettin’ them to you. And, sae, good-morrow t’ ye.”  With that final announcement of her royal will and pleasure, the Empress of the Inn withdrew.

Anne made no reply.  She watched the landlady out of the room—­and then struggled to control herself no longer.  In her position, suspicion was doubly insult.  The hot tears of shame gathered in her eyes; and the heart-ache wrung her, poor soul—­wrung her without mercy.

A trifling noise in the room startled her.  She looked up, and detected a man in a corner, dusting the furniture, and apparently acting in the capacity of attendant at the inn.  He had shown her into the parlor on her arrival; but he had remained so quietly in the room that she had never noticed him since, until that moment.