‘What are the business arrangements? What is going to happen? Is he trying to make her give up Mr. Douglas?’ said Rose: but her mother could not or would not give her any information. By-and-by Heathcote came in alone. Anne was too much disturbed by this strange interview to appear when it was over in the tranquil circle of the family. She went upstairs to take off her wraps, to subdue the commotion in her mind and the light in her eyes, and tame herself down to the every-day level. Her mind was somewhat confused, more confused than it had yet been as to her duty. Cosmo somehow had seemed to be gently pushed out of the first place by this stranger who never named him, who knew nothing of him, and who certainly ignored the fact that, without Cosmo, Anne no longer lived or breathed. She was angry that he should be so ignorant, yet too shy and proud to mention her lover or refer to him save by implication. She would have been willing to give up corresponding with him, to make any immediate sacrifice to her father’s prejudice against him--had that been ever asked of her. But to give up ‘the one choice of her life,’ as she had said, would have been impossible. Her mind was affected strongly, but not with alarm, by the intelligence that something was being done mysteriously in the dark against her, that the threat under which she had been living was now being carried out. But this did not move her to submit as Heathcote had urged--rather it stimulated her to resist. Had Cosmo but been at hand! But if he had been at hand, how could he have ventured to give the advice which Heathcote gave? He could not have asked her to yield, to dissemble, to please the old man while his life lasted, to pretend to give himself up. Nothing of this could he have suggested or she listened to. And yet it was what Cosmo would have liked to advise; but to this state of Cosmo’s mind Anne had no clue. CHAPTER XVII. THE ABSOLUTE AND THE COMPARATIVE.