“Pardon me,” she said.  “My memory for faces is a bad one; and I don’t think you heard me just now, when I asked for your name.  Have we ever met before?”

“Never.”

“And yet—­if I understand what you are referring to—­you wish to speak to me about something which is only interesting to myself and my most intimate friends.”

“You understand me quite correctly,” said Anne.  “I wish to speak to you about some anonymous letters—­”

“For the third time, will you permit me to ask for your name?”

“You shall hear it directly—­if you will first allow me to finish what I wanted to say.  I wish—­if I can—­to persuade you that I come here as a friend, before I mention my name.  You will, I am sure, not be very sorry to hear that you need dread no further annoyance—­”

“Pardon me once more,” said Mrs. Glenarm, interposing for the second time.  “I am at a loss to know to what I am to attribute this kind interest in my affairs on the part of a total stranger.”

This time, her tone was more than politely cold—­it was politely impertinent.  Mrs. Glenarm had lived all her life in good society, and was a perfect mistress of the subtleties of refined insolence in her intercourse with those who incurred her displeasure.

Anne’s sensitive nature felt the wound—­but Anne’s patient courage submitted.  She put away from her the insolence which had tried to sting, and went on, gently and firmly, as if nothing had happened.

“The person who wrote to you anonymously,” she said, “alluded to a correspondence.  He is no longer in possession of it.  The correspondence has passed into hands which may be trusted to respect it.  It will be put to no base use in the future—­I answer for that.”

“You answer for that?” repeated Mrs. Glenarm.  She suddenly leaned forward over the piano, and fixed her eyes in unconcealed scrutiny on Anne’s face.  The violent temper, so often found in combination with the weak nature, began to show itself in her rising color, and her lowering brow.  “How do you know what the person wrote?” she asked.  “How do you know that the correspondence has passed into other hands?  Who are you?” Before Anne could answer her, she sprang to her feet, electrified by a new idea.  “The man who wrote to me spoke of something else besides a correspondence.  He spoke of a woman.  I have found you out!” she exclaimed, with a burst of jealous fury. “You are the woman!”

Anne rose on her side, still in firm possession of her self-control.

“Mrs. Glenarm,” she said, calmly, “I warn—­no, I entreat you—­not to take that tone with me.  Compose yourself; and I promise to satisfy you that you are more interested than you are willing to believe in what I have still to say.  Pray bear with me for a little longer.  I admit that you have guessed right.  I own that I am the miserable woman who has been ruined and deserted by Geoffrey Delamayn.”