Lady Lundie put a last precautionary question, in these words: "Have you reported what you have seen to any body else ?" An affirmative reply.

Lady Lundie had not bargained for that.

Hester Dethridge (she thought) must surely have misunderstood her.
"Do you mean that you have told somebody else what you have just told me ?" Another affirmative reply.
"A person who questioned you, as I have done ?" A third affirmative reply.
"Who was it ?" Hester Dethridge wrote on her slate: "Miss Blanche." Lady Lundie stepped back, staggered by the discovery that Blanche's resolution to trace Anne Silvester was, to all appearance, as firmly settled as her own.

Her step-daughter was keeping her own counsel, and acting on her own responsibility--her step-daughter might be an awkward obstacle in the way.

The manner in which Anne had left the house had mortally offended Lady Lundie.