“Send him away!” said Anne.  “His familiarity is beyond all endurance.”

“You needn’t wait,” said Arnold.

“Eh! but I’m here to wait,” objected Mr. Bishopriggs.  “What’s the use o’ my gaun’ away, when ye’ll want me anon to change the plates for ye?” He considered for a moment (privately consulting his experience) and arrived at a satisfactory conclusion as to Arnold’s motive for wanting to get rid of him.  “Tak’ her on yer knee,” he whispered in Arnold’s ear, “as soon as ye like!  Feed him at the fork’s end,” he added to Anne, “whenever ye please!  I’ll think of something else, and look out at the proaspect.”  He winked—­and went to the window.

“Come! come!” said Arnold to Anne.  “There’s a comic side to all this.  Try and see it as I do.”

Mr. Bishopriggs returned from the window, and announced the appearance of a new element of embarrassment in the situation at the inn.

“My certie!” he said, “it’s weel ye cam’ when ye did.  It’s ill getting to this hottle in a storm.”

Anne started and looked round at him.  “A storm coming!” she exclaimed.

“Eh! ye’re well hoosed here—­ye needn’t mind it.  There’s the cloud down the valley,” he added, pointing out of the window, “coming up one way, when the wind’s blawing the other.  The storm’s brewing, my leddy, when ye see that!”

There was another knock at the door.  As Arnold had predicted, the landlady made her appearance on the scene.

“I ha’ just lookit in, Sir,” said Mrs. Inchbare, addressing herself exclusively to Arnold, “to see ye’ve got what ye want.”

“Oh! you are the landlady?  Very nice, ma’am—­very nice.”

Mistress Inchbare had her own private motive for entering the room, and came to it without further preface.

“Ye’ll excuse me, Sir,” she proceeded.  “I wasna in the way when ye cam’ here, or I suld ha’ made bauld to ask ye the question which I maun e’en ask noo.  Am I to understand that ye hire these rooms for yersel’, and this leddy here—­yer wife?”

Anne raised her head to speak.  Arnold pressed her hand warningly, under the table, and silenced her.

“Certainly,” he said.  “I take the rooms for myself, and this lady here—­my wife!”

Anne made a second attempt to speak.

“This gentleman—­” she began.

Arnold stopped her for the second time.

“This gentleman?” repeated Mrs. Inchbare, with a broad stare of surprise.  “I’m only a puir woman, my leddy—­d’ye mean yer husband here?”

Arnold’s warning hand touched Anne’s, for the third time.  Mistress Inchbare’s eyes remained fixed on her in merciless inquiry.  To have given utterance to the contradiction which trembled on her lips would have been to involve Arnold (after all that he had sacrificed for her) in the scandal which would inevitably follow—­a scandal which would be talked of in the neighborhood, and which might find its way to Blanche’s ears.  White and cold, her eyes never moving from the table, she accepted the landlady’s implied correction, and faintly repeated the words:  “My husband.”