chunk: The novel finally becomes a thriller. Geoffrey takes Anne to a secluded cottage in which the cook-housekeeper Hester Dethridge (who also features in the earliest scenes) is mute. Hester inadvertently reveals to Geoffrey that she murdered her brutal and rapacious husband by dismantling part of the wall of his (locked) bedroom in an almost-invisible way, leaning through and smothering him. Geoffrey forces Hester to show him how to do the same to Anne. By various stratagems he gets Anne to sleep in a suitably-placed bed. However he suffers a stroke when about to smother her, and while unconscious is throttled by Hester, who belatedly recognises the enormity of what she has been abetting. Sir Patrick, knowing the danger in which Anne is placed, has kept watch outside the house and, when Anne gives the alarm, duly rescues her.