MY LADY'S MONEY

by Wilkie Collins




AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A YOUNG GIRL

PERSONS OF THE STORY


Women


Lady Lydiard (Widow of Lord Lydiard)
Isabel Miller (her Adopted Daughter)
Miss Pink (of South Morden)
The Hon. Mrs. Drumblade (Sister to the Hon. A. Hardyman)


Men

The Hon. Alfred Hardyman (of the Stud Farm)
Mr. Felix Sweetsir (Lady Lydiard's Nephew)
Robert Moody (Lady Lydiard's Steward)
Mr. Troy (Lady Lydiard's Lawyer)
Old Sharon (in the Byways of Legal Bohemia)


Animal

Tommie (Lady Lydiard's Dog)




PART THE FIRST.

THE DISAPPEARANCE.

CHAPTER I.

OLD Lady Lydiard sat meditating by the fireside, with three
letters lying open on her lap.

Time had discolored the paper, and had turned the ink to a
brownish hue. The letters were all addressed to the same
person--"THE RT. HON. LORD LYDIARD"--and were all signed in the
same way--"Your affectionate cousin, James Tollmidge." Judged by
these specimens of his correspondence, Mr. Tollmidge must have
possessed one great merit as a letter-writer--the merit of
brevity. He will weary nobody's patience, if he is allowed to
have a hearing. Let him, therefore, be permitted, in his own
high-flown way, to speak for himself.

_First Letter._--"My statement, as your Lordship requests, shall
be short and to the point. I was doing very well as a
portrait-painter in the country; and I had a wife and children to
consider. Under the circumstances, if I had been left to decide
for myself, I should certainly have waited until I had saved a
little money before I ventured on the serious expense of taking a
house and studio at the west end of London. Your Lordship, I
positively declare, encouraged me to try the experiment without
waiting. And here I am, unknown and unemployed, a helpless artist
lost in London--with a sick wife and hungry children, and
bankruptcy staring me in the face. On whose shoulders does this
dreadful responsibility rest? On your Lordship's!"

_Second Letter._--"After a week's delay, you favor me, my Lord,
with a curt reply. I can be equally curt on my side. I
indignantly deny that I or my wife ever presumed to see your
Lordship's name as a means of recommendation to sitters without
your permission. Some enemy has slandered us. I claim as my right
to know the name of that enemy."

_Third (and last) Letter._--"Another week has passed--and not a
word of answer has reached me from your Lordship. It matters
little. I have employed the interval in making inquiries, and I
have at last discovered the hostile influence which has estranged
you from me. I have been, it seems, so unfortunate as to offend
Lady Lydiard (how, I cannot imagine); and the all-powerful
influence of this noble lady is now used against the struggling
artist who is united to you by the sacred ties of kindred. Be it
so. I can fight my way upwards, my Lord, as other men have done
before me. A day may yet come when the throng of carriages
waiting at the door of the fashionable portrait-painter will
include her Ladyship's vehicle, and bring me the tardy expression
of her Ladyship's regret. I refer you, my Lord Lydiard, to that
day!"

Having read Mr. Tollmidge's formidable assertions relating to
herself for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to
an abrupt end. She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear
them up, hesitated, and threw them back in the cabinet drawer in
which she had discovered them, among other papers that had not
been arranged since Lord Lydiard's death.

"The idiot!" said her Ladyship, thinking of Mr. Tollmidge, "I
never even heard of him, in my husband's lifetime; I never even
knew that he was really related to Lord Lydiard, till I found his
letters. What is to be done next?"

She looked, as she put that question to herself, at an open
newspaper thrown on the table, which announced the death of "that
accomplished artist Mr. Tollmidge, related, it is said, to the
late well-known connoisseur, Lord Lydiard." In the next sentence
the writer of the obituary notice deplored the destitute
condition of Mrs. Tollmidge and her children, "thrown helpless on
the mercy of the world." Lady Lydiard stood by the table with her
eyes on those lines, and saw but too plainly the direction in
which they pointed--the direction of her check-book.

Turning towards the fireplace, she rang the bell. "I can do
nothing in this matter," she thought to herself, "until I know
whether the report about Mrs. Tollmidge and her family is to be
depended on. Has Moody come back?" she asked, when the servant
appeared at the door. "Moody" (otherwise her Ladyship's steward)
had not come back. Lady Lydiard dismissed the subject of the
artist's widow from further consideration until the steward
returned, and gave her mind to a question of domestic interest
which lay nearer to her heart. Her favorite dog had been ailing
for some time past, and no report of him had reached her that
morning. She opened a door near the fireplace, which led, through
a little corridor hung with rare prints, to her own boudoir.
"Isabel!" she called out, "how is Tommie?"

A fresh young voice answered from behind the curtain which closed
the further end of the corridor, "No better, my Lady."

A low growl followed the fresh young voice, and added (in dog's
language), "Much worse, my Lady--much worse!"

Lady Lydiard closed the door again, with a compassionate sigh for
Tommie, and walked slowly to and fro in her spacious
drawing-room, waiting for the steward's return.

Accurately described, Lord Lydiard's widow was short and fat,
and, in the matter of age, perilously near her sixtieth birthday.
But it may be said, without paying a compliment, that she looked
younger than her age by ten years at least. Her complexion was of
that delicate pink tinge which is sometimes seen in old women
with well-preserved constitutions. Her eyes (equally well
preserved) were of that hard light blue color which wears well,
and does not wash out when tried by the test of tears. Add to
this her short nose, her plump cheeks that set wrinkles at
defiance, her white hair dressed in stiff little curls; and, if a
doll could grow old, Lady Lydiard, at sixty, would have been the
living image of that doll, taking life easily on its journey
downwards to the prettiest of tombs, in a burial-ground where the
myrtles and roses grew all the year round.

These being her Ladyship's personal merits, impartial history
must acknowledge, on the list of her defects, a total want of
tact and taste in her attire. The lapse of time since Lord
Lydiard's death had left her at liberty to dress as she pleased.
She arrayed her short, clumsy figure in colors that were far too
bright for a woman of her ages. Her dresses, badly chosen as to
their hues, were perhaps not badly made, but were certainly badly
worn. Morally, as well as physically, it must be said of Lady
Lydiard that her outward side was her worst side. The anomalies
of her dress were matched by the anomalies of her character.
There were moments when she felt and spoke as became a lady of
rank; and there were other moments when she felt and spoke as
might have become the cook in the kitchen. Beneath these
superficial inconsistencies, the great heart, the essentially
true and generous nature of the woman, only waited the sufficient
occasion to assert themselves. In the trivial intercourse of
society she was open to ridicule on every side of her. But when a
serious emergency tried the metal of which she was really made,
the people who were loudest in laughing at her stood aghast, and
wondered what had become of the familiar companion of their
everyday lives.

Her Ladyship's promenade had lasted but a little while, when a
man in black clothing presented himself noiselessly at the great
door which opened on the staircase. Lady Lydiard signed to him
impatiently to enter the room.

"I have been expecting you for some time, Moody," she said. "You
look tired. Take a chair."

The man in black bowed respectfully, and took his seat.


CHAPTER II.

ROBERT MOODY was at this time nearly forty years of age. He was a
shy, quiet, dark person, with a pale, closely-shav en face,
agreeably animated by large black eyes, set deep in their orbits.
His mouth was perhaps his best feature; he had firm, well-shaped
lips, which softened on rare occasions into a particularly
winning smile. The whole look of the man, in spite of his
habitual reserve, declared him to be eminently trustworthy. His
position in Lady Lydiard's household was in no sense of the
menial sort. He acted as her almoner and secretary as well as her
steward--distributed her charities, wrote her letters on
business, paid her bills, engaged her servants, stocked her
wine-cellar, was authorized to borrow books from her library, and
was served with his meals in his own room. His parentage gave him
claims to these special favors; he was by birth entitled to rank
as a gentleman. His father had failed at a time of commercial
panic as a country banker, had paid a good dividend, and had died
in exile abroad a broken-hearted man. Robert had tried to hold
his place in the world, but adverse fortune kept him down.
Undeserved disaster followed him from one employment to another,
until he abandoned the struggle, bade a last farewell to the
pride of other days, and accepted the position considerately and
delicately offered to him in Lady Lydiard's house. He had now no
near relations living, and he had never made many friends. In the
intervals of occupation he led a lonely life in his little room.
It was a matter of secret wonder among the women in the servants'
hall, considering his personal advantages and the opportunities
which must surely have been thrown in his way, that he had never
tempted fortune in the character of a married man. Robert Moody
entered into no explanations on that subject. In his own sad and
quiet way he continued to lead his own sad and quiet life. The
women all failing, from the handsome housekeeper downward, to
make the smallest impression on him, consoled themselves by
prophetic visions of his future relations with the sex, and
predicted vindictively that "his time would come."

"Well," said Lady Lydiard, "and what have you done?"

"Your Ladyship seemed to be anxious about the dog," Moody
answered, in the low tone which was habitual to him. "I went
first to the veterinary surgeon. He had been called away into the
country; and--"

Lady Lydiard waved away the conclusion of the sentence with her
hand. "Never mind the surgeon. We must find somebody else. Where
did you go next?"

"To your Ladyship"s lawyer. Mr. Troy wished me to say that he
will have the honor of waiting on you--"

"Pass over the lawyer, Moody. I want to know about the painter's
widow. Is it true that Mrs. Tollmidge and her family are left in
helpless poverty?"

"Not quite true, my Lady. I have seen the clergyman of the
parish, who takes an interest in the case--"

Lady Lydiard interrupted her steward for the third time. "Did you
mention my name?" she asked sharply.

"Certainly not, my Lady. I followed my instructions, and
described you as a benevolent person in search of cases of real
distress. It is quite true that Mr. Tollmidge has died, leaving
nothing to his family. But the widow has a little income of
seventy pounds in her own right."

"Is that enough to live on, Moody?" her Ladyship asked.

"Enough, in this case, for the widow and her daughter," Moody
answered. "The difficulty is to pay the few debts left standing,
and to start the two sons in life. They are reported to be steady
lads; and the family is much respected in the neighborhood. The
clergyman proposes to get a few influential names to begin with,
and to start a subscription."

"No subscription!" protested Lady Lydiard. "Mr. Tollmidge was
Lord Lydiard's cousin; and Mrs. Tollmidge is related to his
Lordship by marriage. It would be degrading to my husband's
memory to have the begging-box sent round for his relations, no
matter how distant they may be. Cousins!" exclaimed her Ladyship,
suddenly descending from the lofty ranges of sentiment to the
low. "I hate the very name of them! A person who is near enough
to me to be my relation and far enough off from me to be my
sweetheart, is a double-faced sort of person that I don't like.
Let's get back to the widow and her sons. How much do they want?"

"A subscription of five hundred pounds, my Lady, would provide
for everything--if it could only be collected."

"It _shall_ be collected, Moody! I will pay the subscription out
of my own purse." Having asserted herself in those noble terms,
she spoilt the effect of her own outburst of generosity by
dropping to the sordid view of the subject in her next sentence.
"Five hundred pounds is a good bit of money, though; isn't it,
Moody?"

"It is, indeed, my Lady." Rich and generous as he knew his
mistress to be, her proposal to pay the whole subscription took
the steward by surprise. Lady Lydiard's quick perception
instantly detected what was passing in his mind.

"You don't quite understand my position in this matter," she
said. "When I read the newspaper notice of Mr. Tollmidge's death,
I searched among his Lordship's papers to see if they really were
related. I discovered some letters from Mr. Tollmidge, which
showed me that he and Lord Lydiard were cousins. One of those
letters contains some very painful statements, reflecting most
untruly and unjustly on my conduct; lies, in short," her Ladyship
burst out, losing her dignity, as usual. "Lies, Moody, for which
Mr. Tollmidge deserved to be horsewhipped. I would have done it
myself if his Lordship had told me at the time. No matter; it's
useless to dwell on the thing now," she continued, ascending
again to the forms of expression which became a lady of rank.
"This unhappy man has done me a gross injustice; my motives may
be seriously misjudged, if I appear personally in communicating
with his family. If I relieve them anonymously in their present
trouble, I spare them the exposure of a public subscription, and
I do what I believe his Lordship would have done himself if he
had lived. My desk is on the other table. Bring it here, Moody;
and let me return good for evil, while I'm in the humor for it!"

Moody obeyed in silence. Lady Lydiard wrote a check.

"Take that to the banker's, and bring back a five-hundred pound
note," she said. "I'll inclose it to the clergyman as coming from
'an unknown friend.' And be quick about it. I am only a fallible
mortal, Moody. Don't leave me time enough to take the stingy view
of five hundred pounds."

Moody went out with the check. No delay was to be apprehended in
obtaining the money; the banking-house was hard by, in St.
James's Street. Left alone, Lady Lydiard decided on occupying her
mind in the generous direction by composing her anonymous letter
to the clergyman. She had just taken a sheet of note-paper from
her desk, when a servant appeared at the door announcing a
visitor--

"Mr. Felix Sweetsir!"


CHAPTER III.

"MY nephew!" Lady Lydiard exclaimed in a tone which expressed
astonishment, but certainly not pleasure as well. "How many years
is it since you and I last met?" she asked, in her abruptly
straightforward way, as Mr. Felix Sweetsir approached her
writing-table.

The visitor was not a person easily discouraged. He took Lady
Lydiard's hand, and kissed it with easy grace. A shade of irony
was in his manner, agreeably relieved by a playful flash of
tenderness.

"Years, my dear aunt?" he said. "Look in your glass and you will
see that time has stood still since we met last. How wonderfully
well you wear! When shall we celebrate the appearance of your
first wrinkle? I am too old; I shall never live to see it."

He took an easychair, uninvited; placed himself close at his
aunt's side, and ran his eye over her ill-chosen dress with an
air of satirical admiration. "How perfectly successful!" he said,
with his well-bred insolence. "What a chaste gayety of color!"

"What do you want?" asked her Ladyship, not in the least softened
by the compliment.

"I want to pay my respects to my dear aunt," Felix answered,
perfectly impenetrable to his ungracious reception, and perfectly
comfortable in a spacious arm-chair.

No pen-and-ink portrait need surely be drawn of Felix
Sweetsir--he is too well-known a picture in society. The little
lith e man, with his bright, restless eyes, and his long
iron-gray hair falling in curls to his shoulders, his airy step
and his cordial manner; his uncertain age, his innumerable
accomplishments, and his unbounded popularity--is he not familiar
everywhere, and welcome everywhere? How gratefully he receives,
how prodigally he repays, the cordial appreciation of an admiring
world! Every man he knows is "a charming fellow." Every woman he
sees is "sweetly pretty." What picnics he gives on the banks of
the Thames in the summer season! What a well-earned little income
he derives from the whist-table! What an inestimable actor he is
at private theatricals of all sorts (weddings included)! Did you
never read Sweetsir's novel, dashed off in the intervals of
curative perspiration at a German bath? Then you don't know what
brilliant fiction really is. He has never written a second work;
he does everything, and only does it once. One song--the despair
of professional composers. One picture--just to show how easily a
gentleman can take up an art and drop it again. A really
multiform man, with all the graces and all the accomplishments
scintillating perpetually at his fingers' ends. If these poor
pages have achieved nothing else, they have done a service to
persons not in society by presenting them to Sweetsir. In his
gracious company the narrative brightens; and writer and reader
(catching reflected brilliancy) understand each other at last,
thanks to Sweetsir.

"Well," said Lady Lydiard, "now you are here, what have you got
to say for yourself? You have been abroad, of course! Where?"

"Principally at Paris, my dear aunt. The only place that is fit
to live in--for this excellent reason, that the French are the
only people who know how to make the most of life. One has
relations and friends in England and every now and then one
returns to London--"

"When one has spent all one's money in Paris," her Ladyship
interposed. "That's what you were going to say, isn't it?"

Felix submitted to the interruption with his delightful
good-humor.

"What a bright creature you are!" he exclaimed. "What would I not
give for your flow of spirits! Yes--one does spend money in
Paris, as you say. The clubs, the stock exchange, the
race-course: you try your luck here, there, and everywhere; and
you lose and win, win and lose--and you haven't a dull day to
complain of." He paused, his smile died away, he looked
inquiringly at Lady Lydiard. "What a wonderful existence yours
must be," he resumed. "The everlasting question with your needy
fellow-creatures, 'Where am I to get money?' is a question that
has never passed your lips. Enviable woman!" He paused once
more--surprised and puzzled this time. "What is the matter, my
dear aunt? You seem to be suffering under some uneasiness."

"I am suffering under your conversation," her Ladyship answered
sharply. "Money is a sore subject with me just now," she went on,
with her eyes on her nephew, watching the effect of what she
said. "I have spent five hundred pounds this morning with a
scrape of my pen. And, only a week since, I yielded to temptation
and made an addition to my picture-gallery." She looked, as she
said those words, towards an archway at the further end of the
room, closed by curtains of purple velvet. "I really tremble when
I think of what that one picture cost me before I could call it
mine. A landscape by Hobbema; and the National Gallery bidding
against me. Never mind!" she concluded, consoling herself, as
usual, with considerations that were beneath her. "Hobbema will
sell at my death for a bigger price than I gave for him--that's
one comfort!" She looked again at Felix; a smile of mischievous
satisfaction began to show itself in her face. "Anything wrong
with your watch-chain?" she asked.

Felix, absently playing with his watch-chain, started as if his
aunt had suddenly awakened him. While Lady Lydiard had been
speaking, his vivacity had subsided little by little, and had
left him looking so serious and so old that his most intimate
friend would hardly have known him again. Roused by the sudden
question that had been put to him, he seemed to be casting about
in his mind in search of the first excuse for his silence that
might turn up.

"I was wondering," he began, "why I miss something when I look
round this beautiful room; something familiar, you know, that I
fully expected to find here."

"Tommie?" suggested Lady Lydiard, still watching her nephew as
maliciously as ever.

"That's it!" cried Felix, seizing his excuse, and rallying his
spirits. "Why don't I hear Tommie snarling behind me; why don't I
feel Tommie's teeth in my trousers?"

The smile vanished from Lady Lydiard's face; the tone taken by
her nephew in speaking of her dog was disrespectful in the
extreme. She showed him plainly that she disapproved of it. Felix
went on, nevertheless, impenetrable to reproof of the silent
sort. "Dear little Tommie! So delightfully fat; and such an
infernal temper! I don't know whether I hate him or love him.
Where is he?"

"Ill in bed," answered her ladyship, with a gravity which
startled even Felix himself. "I wish to speak to you about
Tommie. You know everybody. Do you know of a good dog-doctor? The
person I have employed so far doesn't at all satisfy me."

"Professional person?" inquired Felix.

"Yes."

"All humbugs, my dear aunt. The worse the dog gets the bigger the
bill grows, don't you see? I have got the man for you--a
gentleman. Knows more about horses and dogs than all the
veterinary surgeons put together. We met in the boat yesterday
crossing the Channel. You know him by name, of course? Lord
Rotherfield's youngest son, Alfred Hardyman."

"The owner of the stud farm? The man who has bred the famous
racehorses?" cried Lady Lydiard. "My dear Felix, how can I
presume to trouble such a great personage about my dog?"

Felix burst into his genial laugh. "Never was modesty more
woefully out of place," he rejoined. "Hardyman is dying to be
presented to your Ladyship. He has heard, like everybody, of the
magnificent decorations of this house, and he is longing to see
them. His chambers are close by, in Pall Mall. If he is at home
we will have him here in five minutes. Perhaps I had better see
the dog first?"

Lady Lydiard shook her head. "Isabel says he had better not be
disturbed," she answered. "Isabel understands him better than
anybody."

Felix lifted his lively eyebrows with a mixed expression of
curiosity and surprise. "Who is Isabel?"

Lady Lydiard was vexed with herself for carelessly mentioning
Isabel's name in her nephew's presence. Felix was not the sort of
person whom she was desirous of admitting to her confidence in
domestic matters. "Isabel is an addition to my household since
you were here last," she answered shortly.

"Young and pretty?" inquired Felix. "Ah! you look serious, and
you don't answer me. Young and pretty, evidently. Which may I see
first, the addition to your household or the addition to your
picture-gallery? You look at the picture-gallery--I am answered
again." He rose to approach the archway, and stopped at his first
step forward. "A sweet girl is a dreadful responsibility, aunt,"
he resumed, with an ironical assumption of gravity. "Do you know,
I shouldn't be surprised if Isabel, in the long run, cost you
more than Hobbema. Who is this at the door?"

The person at the door was Robert Moody, returned from the bank.
Mr. Felix Sweetsir, being near-sighted, was obliged to fit his
eye-glass in position before he could recognize the prime
minister of Lady Lydiard's household.

"Ha! our worthy Moody. How well he wears! Not a gray hair on his
head--and look at mine! What dye do you use, Moody? If he had my
open disposition he would tell. As it is, he looks unutterable
things, and holds his tongue. Ah! if I could only have held _my_
tongue--when I was in the diplomatic service, you know--what a
position I might have occupied by this time! Don't let me
interrupt you, Moody, if you have anything to say to Lady
Lydiard."

Having acknowledged Mr. Sweetsir's lively greeting by a formal
bow, and a grave look of wonder which respectfully repelled that
vivacious gentleman's flow of humor, Moody turned
 towards his mistress.

"Have you got the bank-note?" asked her Ladyship.

Moody laid the bank-note on the table.

"Am I in the way?" inquired Felix.

"No," said his aunt. "I have a letter to write; it won't occupy
me for more than a few minutes. You can stay here, or go and look
at the Hobbema, which you please."

Felix made a second sauntering attempt to reach the
picture-gallery. Arrived within a few steps of the entrance, he
stopped again, attracted by an open cabinet of Italian
workmanship, filled with rare old china. Being nothing if not a
cultivated amateur, Mr. Sweetsir paused to pay his passing
tribute of admiration before the contents of the cabinet.
"Charming! charming!" he said to himself, with his head twisted
appreciatively a little on one side. Lady Lydiard and Moody left
him in undisturbed enjoyment of the china, and went on with the
business of the bank-note.

"Ought we to take the number of the note, in case of accident?"
asked her Ladyship.

Moody produced a slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket. "I took
the number, my Lady, at the bank."

"Very well. You keep it. While I am writing my letter, suppose
you direct the envelope. What is the clergyman's name?"

Moody mentioned the name and directed the envelope. Felix,
happening to look round at Lady Lydiard and the steward while
they were both engaged in writing, returned suddenly to the table
as if he had been struck by a new idea.

"Is there a third pen?" he asked. "Why shouldn't I write a line
at once to Hardyman, aunt? The sooner you have his opinion about
Tommie the better--don't you think so?"

Lady Lydiard pointed to the pen tray, with a smile. To show
consideration for her dog was to seize irresistibly on the
high-road to her favor. Felix set to work on his letter, in a
large scrambling handwriting, with plenty of ink and a noisy pen.
"I declare we are like clerks in an office," he remarked, in his
cheery way. "All with our noses to the paper, writing as if we
lived by it! Here, Moody, let one of the servants take this at
once to Mr. Hardyman's."

The messenger was despatched. Robert returned, and waited near
his mistress, with the directed envelope in his hand. Felix
sauntered back slowly towards the picture-gallery, for the third
time. In a moment more Lady Lydiard finished her letter, and
folded up the bank-note in it. She had just taken the directed
envelope from Moody, and had just placed the letter inside it,
when a scream from the inner room, in which Isabel was nursing
the sick dog, startled everybody. "My Lady! my Lady!" cried the
girl, distractedly, "Tommie is in a fit? Tommie is dying!"

Lady Lydiard dropped the unclosed envelope on the table, and
ran--yes, short as she was and fat as she was, ran--into the
inner room. The two men, left together, looked at each other.

"Moody," said Felix, in his lazily-cynical way, "do you think if
you or I were in a fit that her Ladyship would run? Bah! these
are the things that shake one's faith in human nature. I feel
infernally seedy. That cursed Channel passage--I tremble in my
inmost stomach when I think of it. Get me something, Moody."

"What shall I send you, sir?" Moody asked coldly.

"Some dry curacoa and a biscuit. And let it be brought to me in
the picture-gallery. Damn the dog! I'll go and look at Hobbema."

This time he succeeded in reaching the archway, and disappeared
behind the curtains of the picture-gallery.


CHAPTER IV.

LEFT alone in the drawing-room, Moody looked at the unfastened
envelope on the table.

Considering the value of the inclosure, might he feel justified
in wetting the gum and securing the envelope for safety's sake?
After thinking it over, Moody decided that he was not justified
in meddling with the letter. On reflection, her Ladyship might
have changes to make in it or might have a postscript to add to
what she had already written. Apart too, from these
considerations, was it reasonable to act as if Lady Lydiard's
house was a hotel, perpetually open to the intrusion of
strangers? Objects worth twice five hundred pounds in the
aggregate were scattered about on the tables and in the unlocked
cabinets all round him. Moody withdrew, without further
hesitation, to order the light restorative prescribed for himself
by Mr. Sweetsir.

The footman who took the curacoa into the picture gallery found
Felix recumbent on a sofa, admiring the famous Hobbema.

"Don't interrupt me," he said peevishly, catching the servant in
the act of staring at him. "Put down the bottle and go!"
Forbidden to look at Mr. Sweetsir, the man's eyes as he left the
gallery turned wonderingly towards the famous landscape. And what
did he see? He saw one towering big cloud in the sky that
threatened rain, two withered mahogany-colored trees sorely in
want of rain, a muddy road greatly the worse for rain, and a
vagabond boy running home who was afraid of the rain. That was
the picture, to the footman's eye. He took a gloomy view of the
state of Mr. Sweetsir's brains on his return to the servants'
hall. "A slate loose, poor devil!" That was the footman's report
of the brilliant Felix.

Immediately on the servant's departure, the silence in the
picture-gallery was broken by voices penetrating into it from the
drawing-room. Felix rose to a sitting position on the sofa. He
had recognized the voice of Alfred Hardyman saying, "Don't
disturb Lady Lydiard," and the voice of Moody answering, "I will
just knock at the door of her Ladyship's room, sir; you will find
Mr. Sweetsir in the picture-gallery."

The curtains over the archway parted, and disclosed the figure of
a tall man, with a closely cropped head set a little stiffly on
his shoulders. The immovable gravity of face and manner which
every Englishman seems to acquire who lives constantly in the
society of horses, was the gravity which this gentleman displayed
as he entered the picture-gallery. He was a finely made, sinewy
man, with clearly cut, regular features. If he had not been
affected with horses on the brain he would doubtless have been
personally popular with the women. As it was, the serene and
hippic gloom of the handsome horse-breeder daunted the daughters
of Eve, and they failed to make up their minds about the exact
value of him, socially considered. Alfred Hardyman was
nevertheless a remarkable man in his way. He had been offered the
customary alternatives submitted to the younger sons of the
nobility--the Church or the diplomatic service--and had refused
the one and the other. "I like horses," he said, "and I mean to
get my living out of them. Don't talk to me about my position in
the world. Talk to my eldest brother, who gets the money and the
title." Starting in life with these sensible views, and with a
small capital of five thousand pounds, Hardyman took his own
place in the sphere that was fitted for him. At the period of
this narrative he was already a rich man, and one of the greatest
authorities on horse-breeding in England. His prosperity made no
change in him. He was always the same grave, quiet, obstinately
resolute man--true to the few friends whom he admitted to his
intimacy, and sincere to a fault in the expression of his
feelings among persons whom he distrusted or disliked. As he
entered the picture-gallery and paused for a moment looking at
Felix on the sofa, his large, cold, steady gray eyes rested on
the little man with an indifference that just verged on contempt.
Felix, on the other hand, sprang to his feet with alert
politeness and greeted his friend with exuberant cordiality.

"Dear old boy! This is so good of you," he began. "I feel it--I
do assure you I feel it!"

"You needn't trouble yourself to feel it," was the
quietly-ungracious answer. "Lady Lydiard brings me here. I come
to see the house--and the dog." He looked round the gallery in
his gravely attentive way. "I don't understand pictures," he
remarked resignedly. "I shall go back to the drawing-room."

After a moment's consideration, Felix followed him into the
drawing-room, with the air of a man who was determined not to be
repelled.

"Well?" asked Hardyman. "What is it?"

"About that matter?" Felix said, inquiringly.

"What matter?"

"Oh, you know. Will next week do?"

"Nex t week _won't_ do."

Mr. Felix Sweetsir cast one look at his friend. His friend was
too intently occupied with the decorations of the drawing-room to
notice the look.

"Will to-morrow do?" Felix resumed, after an interval.

"Yes."

"At what time?"

"Between twelve and one in the afternoon."

"Between twelve and one in the afternoon," Felix repeated. He
looked again at Hardyman and took his hat. "Make my apologies to
my aunt," he said. "You must introduce yourself to her Ladyship.
I can't wait here any longer." He walked out of the room, having
deliberately returned the contemptuous indifference of Hardyman
by a similar indifference on his own side, at parting.

Left by himself, Hardyman took a chair and glanced at the door
which led into the boudoir. The steward had knocked at that door,
had disappeared through it, and had not appeared again. How much
longer was Lady Lydiard's visitor to be left unnoticed in Lady
Lydiard's house?

As the question passed through his mind the boudoir door opened.
For once in his life, Alfred Hardyman's composure deserted him.
He started to his feet, like an ordinary mortal taken completely
by surprise

Instead of Mr. Moody, instead of Lady Lydiard, there appeared in
the open doorway a young woman in a state of embarrassment, who
actually quickened the beat of Mr. Hardyman's heart the moment he
set eyes on her. Was the person who produced this amazing
impression at first sight a person of importance? Nothing of the
sort. She was only "Isabel" surnamed "Miller." Even her name had
nothing in it. Only "Isabel Miller!"

Had she any pretensions to distinction in virtue of her personal
appearance?

It is not easy to answer the question. The women (let us put the
worst judges first) had long since discovered that she wanted
that indispensable elegance of figure which is derived from
slimness of waist and length of limb. The men (who were better
acquainted with the subject) looked at her figure from their
point of view; and, finding it essentially embraceable, asked for
nothing more. It might have been her bright complexion or it
might have been the bold luster of her eyes (as the women
considered it), that dazzled the lords of creation generally, and
made them all alike incompetent to discover her faults. Still,
she had compensating attractions which no severity of criticism
could dispute. Her smile, beginning at her lips, flowed brightly
and instantly over her whole face. A delicious atmosphere of
health, freshness, and good humor seemed to radiate from her
wherever she went and whatever she did. For the rest her brown
hair grew low over her broad white forehead, and was topped by a
neat little lace cap with ribbons of a violet color. A plain
collar and plain cuffs encircled her smooth, round neck, and her
plump dimpled hands. Her merino dress, covering but not hiding
the charming outline of her bosom, matched the color of the
cap-ribbons, and was brightened by a white muslin apron
coquettishly trimmed about the pockets, a gift from Lady Lydiard.
Blushing and smiling, she let the door fall to behind her, and,
shyly approaching the stranger, said to him, in her small, clear
voice, "If you please, sir, are you Mr. Hardyman?"

The gravity of the great horse-breeder deserted him at her first
question. He smiled as he acknowledged that he was "Mr.
Hardyman"--he smiled as he offered her a chair.

"No, thank you, sir," she said, with a quaintly pretty
inclination of her head. "I am only sent here to make her
Ladyship's apologies. She has put the poor dear dog into a warm
bath, and she can't leave him. And Mr. Moody can't come instead
of me, because I was too frightened to be of any use, and so he
had to hold the dog. That's all. We are very anxious sir, to know
if the warm bath is the right thing. Please come into the room
and tell us."

She led the way back to the door. Hardyman, naturally enough, was
slow to follow her. When a man is fascinated by the charm of
youth and beauty, he is in no hurry to transfer his attention to
a sick animal in a bath. Hardyman seized on the first excuse that
he could devise for keeping Isabel to himself--that is to say,
for keeping her in the drawing-room.

"I think I shall be better able to help you," he said, "if you
will tell me something about the dog first."

Even his accent in speaking had altered to a certain degree. The
quiet, dreary monotone in which he habitually spoke quickened a
little under his present excitement. As for Isabel, she was too
deeply interested in Tommie's welfare to suspect that she was
being made the victim of a stratagem. She left the door and
returned to Hardyman with eager eyes. "What can I tell you, sir?"
she asked innocently.

Hardyman pressed his advantage without mercy.

"You can tell me what sort of dog he is?"

"Yes, sir."

"How old he is?"

"Yes, sir."

"What his name is?--what his temper is?--what his illness is?
what diseases his father and mother had?--what--"

Isabel's head began to turn giddy. "One thing at a time, sir!"
she interposed, with a gesture of entreaty. "The dog sleeps on my
bed, and I had a bad night with him, he disturbed me so, and I am
afraid I am very stupid this morning. His name is Tommie. We are
obliged to call him by it, because he won't answer to any other
than the name he had when my Lady bought him. But we spell it
with an _i e_ at the end, which makes it less vulgar than Tommy
with a _y_. I am very sorry, sir--I forget what else you wanted
to know. Please to come in here and my Lady will tell you
everything."

She tried to get back to the door of the boudoir. Hardyman,
feasting his eyes on the pretty, changeful face that looked up at
him with such innocent confidence in his authority, drew her away
from the door by the one means at his disposal. He returned to
his questions about Tommie.

"Wait a little, please. What sort of dog is he?"

Isabel turned back again from the door. To describe Tommie was a
labor of love. "He is the most beautiful dog in the world!" the
girl began, with kindling eyes. "He has the most exquisite white
curly hair and two light brown patches on his back--and, oh!
_such_ lovely dark eyes! They call him a Scotch terrier. When he
is well his appetite is truly wonderful--nothing comes amiss to
him, sir, from pate de foie gras to potatoes. He has his enemies,
poor dear, though you wouldn't think it. People who won't put up
with being bitten by him (what shocking tempers one does meet
with, to be sure!) call him a mongrel. Isn't it a shame? Please
come in and see him, sir; my Lady will be tired of waiting."

Another journey to the door followed those words, checked
instantly by a serious objection.

"Stop a minute! You must tell me what his temper is, or I can do
nothing for him."

Isabel returned once more, feeling that it was really serious
this time. Her gravity was even more charming than her gayety. As
she lifted her face to him, with large solemn eyes, expressive of
her sense of responsibility, Hardyman would have given every
horse in his stables to have had the privilege of taking her in
his arms and kissing her.

"Tommie has the temper of an angel with the people he likes," she
said. "When he bites, it generally means that he objects to
strangers. He loves my Lady, and he loves Mr. Moody, and he loves
me, and--and I think that's all. This way, sir, if you please, I
am sure I heard my Lady call."

"No," said Hardyman, in his immovably obstinate way. "Nobody
called. About this dog's temper? Doesn't he take to any
strangers? What sort of people does he bite in general?"

Isabel's pretty lips began to curl upward at the corners in a
quaint smile. Hardyman's last imbecile question had opened her
eyes to the true state of the case. Still, Tommie's future was in
this strange gentleman's hands; she felt bound to consider that.
And, moreover, it was no everyday event, in Isabel's experience,
to fascinate a famous personage, who was also a magnificent and
perfectly dressed man. She ran the risk of wasting another minute
or two, and went on with the memoirs of Tommie.

"I must own, sir," she resumed, "that he behaves a little
ungratefully--even to strangers who take an interest in him. When
he gets lost in the streets (which is very often), he sits down
on the pavement and howls till he collects a pitying crowd round
him; and when they try to read his name and address on his collar
he snaps at them. The servants generally find him and bring him
back; and as soon as he gets home he turns round on the doorstep
and snaps at the servants. I think it must be his fun. You should
see him sitting up in his chair at dinner-time, waiting to be
helped, with his fore paws on the edge of the table, like the
hands of a gentleman at a public dinner making a speech. But,
oh!" cried Isabel, checking herself, with the tears in her eyes,
"how can I talk of him in this way when he is so dreadfully ill!
Some of them say it's bronchitis, and some say it's his liver.
Only yesterday I took him to the front door to give him a little
air, and he stood still on the pavement, quite stupefied. For the
first time in his life, he snapped at nobody who went by; and,
oh, dear, he hadn't even the heart to smell a lamp-post!"

Isabel had barely stated this last afflicting circumstance when
the memoirs of Tommie were suddenly cut short by the voice of
Lady Lydiard--really calling this time--from the inner room.

"Isabel! Isabel!" cried her Ladyship, "what are you about?"

Isabel ran to the door of the boudoir and threw it open. "Go in,
sir! Pray go in!" she said.

"Without you?" Hardyman asked.

"I will follow you, sir. I have something to do for her Ladyship
first."

She still held the door open, and pointed entreatingly to the
passage which led to the boudoir "I shall be blamed, sir," she
said, "if you don't go in."

This statement of the case left Hardyman no alternative. He
presented himself to Lady Lydiard without another moment of
delay.

Having closed the drawing-room door on him, Isabel waited a
little, absorbed in her own thoughts.

She was now perfectly well aware of the effect which she had
produced on Hardyman. Her vanity, it is not to be denied, was
flattered by his admiration--he was so grand and so tall, and he
had such fine large eyes. The girl looked prettier than ever as
she stood with her head down and her color heightened, smiling to
herself. A clock on the chimney-piece striking the half-hour
roused her. She cast one look at the glass, as she passed it, and
went to the table at which Lady Lydiard had been writing.

Methodical Mr. Moody, in submitting to be employed as
bath-attendant upon Tommie, had not forgotten the interests of
his mistress. He reminded her Ladyship that she had left her
letter, with a bank-note inclosed in it, unsealed. Absorbed in
the dog, Lady Lydiard answered, "Isabel is doing nothing, let
Isabel seal it. Show Mr. Hardyman in here," she continued,
turning to Isabel, "and then seal a letter of mine which you will
find on the table." "And when you have sealed it," careful Mr.
Moody added, "put it back on the table; I will take charge of it
when her Ladyship has done with me."

Such were the special instructions which now detained Isabel in
the drawing-room. She lighted the taper, and closed and sealed
the open envelope, without feeling curiosity enough even to look
at the address. Mr. Hardyman was the uppermost subject in her
thoughts. Leaving the sealed letter on the table, she returned to
the fireplace, and studied her own charming face attentively in
the looking-glass. The time passed--and Isabel's reflection was
still the subject of Isabel's contemplation . "He must see many
beautiful ladies," she thought, veering backward and forward
between pride and humility. "I wonder what he sees in Me?"

The clock struck the hour. Almost at the same moment the
boudoir-door opened, and Robert Moody, released at last from
attendance on Tommie, entered the drawing-room.


CHAPTER V.

"WELL?" asked Isabel eagerly, "what does Mr. Hardyman say? Does
he think he can cure Tommie?"

Moody answered a little coldly and stiffly. His dark, deeply-set
eyes rested on Isabel with an uneasy look.

"Mr. Hardyman seems to understand animals," he said. "He lifted
the dog's eyelid and looked at his eyes, and then he told us the
bath was useless."

"Go on!" said Isabel impatiently. "He did something, I suppose,
besides telling you that the bath was useless?"

"He took a knife out of his pocket, with a lancet in it."

Isabel clasped her hands with a faint cry of horror. "Oh, Mr.
Moody! did he hurt Tommie?"

"Hurt him?" Moody repeated, indignant at the interest which she
felt in the animal, and the indifference which she exhibited
towards the man (as represented by himself). "Hurt him, indeed!
Mr. Hardyman bled the brute--"

"Brute?" Isabel reiterated, with flashing eyes. "I know some
people, Mr. Moody, who really deserve to be called by that horrid
word. If you can't say 'Tommie,' when you speak of him in my
presence, be so good as to say 'the dog.' "

Moody yielded with the worst possible grace. "Oh, very well! Mr.
Hardyman bled the dog, and brought him to his senses directly. I
am charged to tell you--" He stopped, as if the message which he
was instructed to deliver was in the last degree distasteful to
him.

"Well, what were you charged to tell me?"

"I was to say that Mr. Hardyman will give you instructions how to
treat the dog for the future."

Isabel hastened to the door, eager to receive her instructions.
Moody stopped her before she could open it.

"You are in a great hurry to get to Mr. Hardyman," he remarked.

Isabel looked back at him in surprise. "You said just now that
Mr. Hardyman was waiting to tell me how to nurse Tommie."

"Let him wait," Moody rejoined sternly. "When I left him, he was
sufficiently occupied in expressing his favorable opinion of you
to her Ladyship."

The steward's pale face turned paler still as he said those
words. With the arrival of Isabel in Lady Lydiard's house "his
time had come"--exactly as the women in the servants' hall had
predicted. At last the impenetrable man felt the influence of the
sex; at last he knew the passion of love misplaced, ill-starred,
hopeless love, for a woman who was young enough to be his child.
He had already spoken to Isabel more than once in terms which
told his secret plainly enough. But the smouldering fire of
jealousy in the man, fanned into flame by Hardyman, now showed
itself for the first time. His looks, even more than his words,
would have warned a woman with any knowledge of the natures of
men to be careful how she answered him. Young, giddy, and
inexperienced, Isabel followed the flippant impulse of the
moment, without a thought of the consequences. "I'm sure it's
very kind of Mr. Hardyman to speak favorably of me," she said,
with a pert little laugh. "I hope you are not jealous of him, Mr.
Moody?"

Moody was in no humor to make allowances for the unbridled gayety
of youth and good spirits.

"I hate any man who admires you," he burst out passionately, "let
him be who he may!"

Isabel looked at her strange lover with unaffected astonishment.
How unlike Mr. Hardyman, who had treated her as a lady from first
to last! "What an odd man you are!" she said. "You can't take a
joke. I'm sure I didn't mean to offend you."

"You don't offend me--you do worse, you distress me."

Isabel's color began to rise. The merriment died out of her face;
she looked at Moody gravely. "I don't like to be accused of
distressing people when I don't deserve it," she said. "I had
better leave you. Let me by, if you please."

Having committed one error in offending her, Moody committed
another in attempting to make his peace with her. Acting under
the fear that she would really leave him, he took her roughly by
the arm.

"You are always trying to get away from me," he said. "I wish I
knew how to make you like me, Isabel."

"I don't allow you to call me Isabel!" she retorted, struggling
to free herself from his hold. "Let go of my arm. You hurt me."

Moody dropped her arm with a bitter sigh. "I don't know how to
deal with you," he said simply. "Have some pity on me!"

If the steward had known anything of women (at Isabel's age) he
would never have appealed to her mercy in those plain terms, and
at the unpropitious moment. "Pity you?" she repeated
contemptuously. "Is that all you have to say to me after hurting
my arm? What a bear you are!" She shrugged her shoulders and put
her hands coquettishly into the pockets of her apron. That was
how she pitied him! His face turned paler and paler--he writhed
under it.

"For God"s sake, don't turn everything I say to you into
ridicule!" he cried. "You know I love you with all my heart and
soul. Again and again I have asked you to be my wife--and you
laugh at me as if it was a joke. I haven't deserved to be treated
in that cruel way. It maddens me--I can't endure it!"

Isabel looked down on the floor, and followed the lines in the
pattern of the carpet with the end of her smart little shoe. She
could hardly have been further away from really understanding
Moody if he had spoken in Hebrew. She was partly startled, partly
puzzled, by the strong emotions which she had unconsciously
called into being. "Oh dear me!" she said, "why can't you talk of
something else? Why can't we be friends? Excuse me for mentioning
it," she went on, looking up at him with a saucy smile, "you are
old enough to be my father."

Moody's head sank on his breast. "I own it," he answered humbly.
"But there is something to be said for me. Men as old as I am
have made good husbands before now. I would devote my whole life
to make you happy. There isn't a wish you could form which I
wouldn't be proud to obey. You mustnŐt reckon me by years. My
youth has not been wasted in a profligate life; I can be truer to
you and fonder of you than many a younger man. Surely my heart is
not quite unworthy of you, when it is all yours. I have lived
such a lonely, miserable life--and you might so easily brighten
it. You are kind to everybody else, Isabel. Tell me, dear, why
are you so hard on _me?_"

His voice trembled as he appealed to her in those simple words.
He had taken the right way at last to produce an impression on
her. She really felt for him. All that was true and tender in her
nature began to rise in her and take his part. Unhappily, he felt
too deeply and too strongly to be patient, and give her time. He
completely misinterpreted her silence--completely mistook the
motive that made her turn aside for a moment, to gather composure
enough to speak to him. "Ah!" he burst out bitterly, turning away
on his side, "you have no heart."

She instantly resented those unjust words. At that moment they
wounded her to the quick.

"You know best," she said. "I have no doubt you are right.
Remember one thing, however, that though I have no heart, I have
never encouraged you, Mr. Moody. I have declared over and over
again that I could only be your friend. Understand that for the
future, if you please. There are plenty of nice women who will be
glad to marry you, I have no doubt. You will always have my best
wishes for your welfare. Good-morning. Her Ladyship will wonder
what has become of me. Be so kind as to let me pass."

Tortured by the passion that consumed him, Moody obstinately kept
his place between Isabel and the door. The unworthy suspicion of
her, which had been in his mind all through the interview, now
forced its way outwards to expression at last.

"No woman ever used a man as you use me without some reason for
it," he said. "You have kept your secret wonderfully well--but
sooner or later all secrets get found out. I know what is in your
mind as well as you know it yourself. You are in love with some
other man."

Isabel's face flushed deeply; the defensive pride of her sex was
up in arms in an instant. She cast one disdainful look at Moody,
without troubling herself to express her contempt in words.
"Stand out of my way, sir!" --that was all she said to him.

"You are in love with some other man," he reiterated
passionately. "Deny it if you can!"

"Deny it?" she repeated, with flashing eyes. "What right have you
to ask the question? Am I not free to do as I please?"

He stood looking at her, meditating his next words with a sudden
and sinister change to self-restraint. Suppressed rage was in his
rigidly set eyes, suppressed rage was in his trembling hand as he
raised it emphatically while he spoke his next words.

"I have one thing more to say," he answered, "and then I have
done. If I am not your husband, no other man shall be. Look well
to it, Isabel Miller. If there _is_ another man between us, I can
tell him this--he shall find it no easy matter to rob me of you!"

She started, and turned pale--but it was only for a moment. The
high spirit that was in her rose brightly in her eyes, and faced
him without shrinking.

"Threats?" she said, with quiet contempt. "When you make love,
Mr. Moody, you take strange ways of doing it. My conscience is
easy. You may try to frighten me, but you will not succeed. When
you have recovered your temper I will accept your excuses." She
paused, and pointed to the table. "There is the letter that you
told me to leave for you when I had sealed it," she went on. "I
suppose you have her Ladyship's orders. Isn't it time you began
to think of obeying them?"

The contemptuous composure of her tone and manner seemed to act
on Moody with crushing effect. Without a word of answer, the
unfortunate steward took up the letter from the table. Without a
word of answer, he walked mechanically to the great door which
opened on the staircase--turned on the threshold to look at
Isabel--waited a moment, pale and still--and suddenly left the
room.

That silent departure, that hopeless submission, impressed Isabel
in spite of herself. The sustaining sense of injury and insult
sank, as it were, from under her the moment she was alone. He had
not been gone a minute before she began to be sorry for him once
more. The interview had taught her nothing. She was neither old
enough nor experienced enough to understand the overwhelming
revolution produced in a man's character when he feels the
passion of love for the first time in the maturity of his life.
If Moody had stolen a kiss at the first opportunity, she would
have resented the liberty he had taken with her; but she would
have thoroughly understood him. His terrible earnestness, his
overpowering agitation, his abrupt violence--all these evidences
of a passion that was a mystery to himself--simply puzzled her.
"I'm sure I didn't wish to hurt his feelings" (such was the form
that her reflections took, in her present penitent frame of
mind); "but why did he provoke me? It is a shame to tell me that
I love some other man--when there is no other man. I declare I
begin to hate the men, if they are all like Mr. Moody. I wonder
whether he will forgive me when he sees me again? I'm sure I'm
willing to forget and forgive on my side--especially if he won't
insist on my being fond of him because he is fond of me. Oh,
dear! I wish he would come back and shake hands. It's enough to
try the patience of a saint to be treated in this way. I wish I
was ugly! The ugly ones have a quiet time of it--the men let them
be. Mr. Moody! Mr. Moody!" She went out to the landing and called
to him softly. There was no answer. He was no longer in the
house. She stood still for a moment in silent vexation. "I'll go
to Tommie!" she decided. "I'm sure he's the more agreeable
company of the two. And--oh, good gracious! there's Mr. Hardyman
waiting to give me my instructions! How do I look, I wonder?"

She consulted the glass once more--gave one or two corrective
touches to her hair and her cap--and hastened into the boudoir.


CHAPTER VI.

FOR a quarter of an hour the drawing-room remained empty. At the
end of that time the council in the boudoir broke up. Lady
Lydiard led the way back into the drawing-room, followed by
Hardyman, Isabel being left to look after the dog. Before the
door closed behind him, Hardyman turned round to reiterate his
last medical directions--or, in plainer words, to take a last
look at Isabel.

"Plenty of water, Miss Isabel, for the dog to lap, and a little
bread or biscuit, if he wants something to eat. Nothing more, if
you please, till I see him to-morrow."

"Thank you, sir. I will take the greatest care--"

At that point Lady Lydiard cut short the interchange of
instructions and civilities. "Shut the door, if you please, Mr.
Hardyman. I feel the draught. Many thanks! I am really at a loss
to tell you how gratefully I feel your kindness. But for you my
poor little dog might be dead by this time."

Hardyman answered, in the quiet melancholy monotone which was
habitual with him, "Your Ladyship need feel no further anxiety
about the dog. Only be careful not to overfeed him. He will do
very well under Miss Isabel's care. By the bye, her family name
is Miller--is it not? Is she related to the Warwickshire Millers
of Duxborough House?"

Lady Lydiard looked at him with an expression of satirical
surprise. "Mr. Hardyman," she said, "this makes the fourth time
you have questioned me about Isabel. You seem to take a great
interest in my little companion. Don't make any apologies, pray!
You pay Isabel a compliment, and, as I am very fond of her, I am
naturally gratified when I find her admired. At the same time,"
she added, with one of her abrupt transitions of language, "I had
my eye on you, and I had my eye on her, when you were talking in
the next room; and I don't mean to let you make a fool of the
girl. She is not in your line of life, and the sooner you know it
the better. You make me laugh when you ask if she is related to
gentlefolks. She is the orphan daughter of a chemist in the
country. Her relations haven't a penny to bless themselves with,
except an old aunt, who lives in a village on two or three
hundred a year. I heard of the girl by accident. When she lost
her father and mother, her aunt offered to take her. Isabel said,
'No, thank you; I will not be a burden on a relation who has only
enough for herself. A girl can earn an honest living if she
tries; and I mean to try'--that's what she said. I admired her
independence," her Ladyship proceeded, ascending again to the
higher regions of thought and expression. "My niece's marriage,
just at that time, had left me alone in this great house. I
proposed to Isabel to come to me as companion and reader for a
few weeks, and to decide for herself whether she liked the life
or not. We have never been separated since that time. I could
hardly be fonder of her if she were my own daughter; and she
returns my affection with all her heart. She has excellent
qualities--prudent, cheerful, sweet-tempered; with good sense
enough to understand what her place is in the world, as
distinguished from her place in my regard. I have taken care, for
her own sake, never to leave that part of the question in any
doubt. It would be cruel kindness to deceive her as to her future
position when she marries. I shall take good care that the man
who pays his addresses to her is a man in her rank of life. I
know but too well, in the case of one of my own relatives, what
miseries unequal marriages bring with them. Excuse me for
troubling you at this length on domestic matters. I am very fond
of Isabel; and a girl's head is so easily turned. Now you know
what her position really is, you will also know what limits there
must be to the expression of your interest in her. I am sure we
understand each other; and I say no more."

Hardyman listened to this long harangue with the immovable
gravity which was part of his character--except when Isabel had
taken him by surprise. When her Ladyship gave him the opportunity
of speaking on his side, he had very little to say, and that
little did not suggest that he had greatly profited by what he
had heard. His mind had been full of Isabel when Lady Lydiard
began, and it remained just as full of her, in just the same way,
when Lady Lydiard had done.

"Yes," he remarked quietly, "Miss Isabel is an uncommonly nice
girl, as you say. Very pretty, and such frank, unaffected
manners. I don't deny that I feel an interest in her. The young
ladies one meets in society are not much to my taste. Miss Isabel
is my taste."

Lady Lydiard's face assumed a look of blank dismay. "I am afraid
I have failed to convey my exact meaning to you," she said.

Hardyman gravely declared that he understood her perfectly.
"Perfectly!" he repeated, with his impenetrable obstinacy. "Your
Ladyship exactly expresses my opinion of Miss Isabel. Prudent,
and cheerful, and sweet-tempered, as you say--all the qualities
in a woman that I admire. With good looks, too--of course, with
good looks. She will be a perfect treasure (as you remarked just
now) to the man who marries her. I may claim to know something
about it. I have twice narrowly escaped being married myself;
and, though I can't exactly explain it, I'm all the harder to
please in consequence. Miss Isabel pleases me. I think I have
said that before? Pardon me for saying it again. I'll call again
to-morrow morning and look at the dog as early as eleven o'clock,
if you will allow me. Later in the day I must be off to France to
attend a sale of horses. Glad to have been of any use to your
Ladyship, I am sure. Good-morning."

Lady Lydiard let him go, wisely resigning any further attempt to
establish an understanding between her visitor and herself.

"He is either a person of very limited intelligence when he is
away from his stables," she thought, "or he deliberately declines
to take a plain hint when it is given to him. I can't drop his
acquaintance, on Tommie's account. The only other alternative is
to keep Isabel out of his way. My good little girl shall not
drift into a false position while I am living to look after her.
When Mr. Hardyman calls to-morrow she shall be out on an errand.
When he calls the next time she shall be upstairs with a
headache. And if he tries it again she shall be away at my house
in the country. If he makes any remarks on her absence--well, he
will find that I can be just as dull of understanding as he is
when the occasion calls for it."

Having arrived at this satisfactory solution of the difficulty,
Lady Lydiard became conscious of an irresistible impulse to
summon Isabel to her presence and caress her. In the nature of a
warm-hearted woman, this was only the inevitable reaction which
followed the subsidence of anxiety about the girl, after her own
resolution had set that anxiety at rest. She threw open the door
and made one of her sudden appearances at the boudoir. Even in
the fervent outpouring of her affection, there was still the
inherent abruptness of manner which so strongly marked Lady
Lydiard's character in all the relations of life.

"Did I give you a kiss, this morning?" she asked, when Isabel
rose to receive her.

"Yes, my Lady," said the girl, with her charming smile.

"Come, then, and give me a kiss in return. Do you love me? Very
well, then, treat me like your mother. Never mind 'my lady' this
time. Give me a good hug!"

Something in those homely words, or something perhaps in the look
that accompanied them, touched sympathies in Isabel which seldom
showed themselves on the surface. Her smiling lips trembled, the
bright tears rose in her eyes. "You are too good to me," she
murmured, with her head on Lady Lydiard's bosom. "How can I ever
love you enough in return?"

Lady Lydiard patted the pretty head that rested on her with such
filial tenderness. "There! there!" she said, "Go back and play
with Tommie, my dear. We may be as fond of each other as we like;
but we mustn't cry. God bless you! Go away--go away!"

She turned aside quickly; her own eyes were moistening, and it
was part of her character to be reluctant to let Isabel see it.
"Why have I made a fool of myself?" she wondered, as she
approached the drawing-room door. "It doesn't matter. I am all
the better for it. Odd, that Mr. Hardyman should have made me
feel fonder of Isabel than ever!"

With those reflections she re-entered the drawing-room--and
suddenly checked herself with a start. "Good Heavens!" she
exclaimed irritably, "how you frightened me! Why was I not told
you were here?"

Having left the drawing-room in a state of solitude, Lady Lydiard
on her return found herself suddenly confronted with a gentleman,
mysteriously planted on the hearth-rug in her absence. The new
visitor may be rightly described as a gray man. He had gray hair,
eyebrows, and whiskers; he wore a gray coat, waistcoat, and
trousers, and gray gloves. For the rest, his appearance was
eminently suggestive of wealth and respectability and, in this
case, appearances were really to
 be trusted. The gray man was no other than Lady Lydiard's legal
adviser, Mr. Troy.

"I regret, my Lady, that I should have been so unfortunate as to
startle you," he said, with a certain underlying embarrassment in
his manner. "I had the honor of sending word by Mr. Moody that I
would call at this hour, on some matters of business connected
with your Ladyship's house property. I presumed that you expected
to find me here, waiting your pleasure--"

Thus far Lady Lydiard had listened to her legal adviser, fixing
her eyes on his face in her usually frank, straightforward way.
She now stopped him in the middle of a sentence, with a change of
expression in her own face which was undisguisedly a change to
alarm.

"Don't apologize, Mr. Troy," she said. "I am to blame for
forgetting your appointment and for not keeping my nerves under
proper control." She paused for a moment and took a seat before
she said her next words. "May I ask," she resumed, "if there is
something unpleasant in the business that brings you here?"

"Nothing whatever, my Lady; mere formalities, which can wait till
to-morrow or next day, if you wish it."

Lady Lydiard's fingers drummed impatiently on the table. "You
have known me long enough, Mr. Troy, to know that I cannot endure
suspense. You _have_ something unpleasant to tell me."

The lawyer respectfully remonstrated. "Really, Lady Lydiard!--"
he began.

"It won't do, Mr. Troy! I know how you look at me on ordinary
occasions, and I see how you look at me now. You are a very
clever lawyer; but, happily for the interests that I commit to
your charge, you are also a thoroughly honest man. After twenty
years' experience of you, you can't deceive _me_. You bring me
bad news. Speak at once, sir, and speak plainly."

Mr. Troy yielded--inch by inch, as it were. "I bring news which,
I fear, may annoy your Ladyship." He paused, and advanced another
inch. "It is news which I only became acquainted with myself on
entering this house."

He waited again, and made another advance. "I happened to meet
your Ladyship's steward, Mr. Moody, in the hall--"

"Where is he?" Lady Lydiard interposed angrily. "I can make _him_
speak out, and I will. Send him here instantly."

The lawyer made a last effort to hold off the coming disclosure a
little longer. "Mr. Moody will be here directly," he said. "Mr.
Moody requested me to prepare your Ladyship--"

"Will you ring the bell, Mr. Troy, or must I?"

Moody had evidently been waiting outside while the lawyer spoke
for him. He saved Mr. Troy the trouble of ringing the bell by
presenting himself in the drawing-room. Lady Lydiard's eyes
searched his face as he approached. Her bright complexion faded
suddenly. Not a word more passed her lips. She looked, and
waited.

In silence on his part, Moody laid an open sheet of paper on the
table. The paper quivered in his trembling hand.

Lady Lydiard recovered herself first. "Is that for me?" she
asked.

"Yes, my Lady."

She took up the paper without an instant's hesitation. Both the
men watched her anxiously as she read it.

The handwriting was strange to her. The words were these:--

"I hereby certify that the bearer of these lines, Robert Moody by
name, has presented to me the letter with which he was charged,
addressed to myself, with the seal intact. I regret to add that
there is, to say the least of it, some mistake. The inclosure
referred to by the anonymous writer of the letter, who signs 'a
friend in need,' has not reached me. No five-hundred pound
bank-note was in the letter when I opened it. My wife was present
when I broke the seal, and can certify to this statement if
necessary. Not knowing who my charitable correspondent is (Mr.
Moody being forbidden to give me any information), I can only
take this means of stating the case exactly as it stands, and
hold myself at the disposal of the writer of the letter. My
private address is at the head of the page. --Samuel Bradstock,
Rector, St. Anne's, Deansbury, London."

Lady Lydiard dropped the paper on the table. For the moment,
plainly as the Rector's statement was expressed, she appeared to
be incapable of understanding it. "What, in God's name, does this
mean?" she asked.

The lawyer and the steward looked at each other. Which of the two
was entitled to speak first? Lady Lydiard gave them no time to
decide. "Moody," she said sternly, "you took charge of the
letter--I look to you for an explanation."

Moody's dark eyes flashed. He answered Lady Lydiard without
caring to conceal that he resented the tone in which she had
spoken to him.

"I undertook to deliver the letter at its address," he said. "I
found it, sealed, on the table. Your Ladyship has the clergyman's
written testimony that I handed it to him with the seal unbroken.
I have done my duty; and I have no explanation to offer."

Before Lady Lydiard could speak again, Mr. Troy discreetly
interfered. He saw plainly that his experience was required to
lead the investigation in the right direction.

"Pardon me, my Lady," he said, with that happy mixture of the
positive and the polite in his manner, of which lawyers alone
possess the secret. "There is only one way of arriving at the
truth in painful matters of this sort. We must begin at the
beginning. May I venture to ask your Ladyship a question?"

Lady Lydiard felt the composing influence of Mr. Troy. "I am at
your disposal, sir," she said, quietly.

"Are you absolutely certain that you inclosed the bank-note in
the letter?" the lawyer asked.

"I certainly believe I inclosed it" Lady Lydiard answered. "But I
was so alarmed at the time by the sudden illness of my dog, that
I do not feel justified in speaking positively."

"Was anybody in the room with your Ladyship when you put the
inclosure in the letter--as you believe?"

"_I_ was in the room," said Moody. "I can swear that I saw her
Ladyship put the bank-note in the letter, and the letter in the
envelope."

"And seal the envelope?" asked Mr. Troy.

"No, sir. Her Ladyship was called away into the next room to the
dog, before she could seal the envelope."

Mr. Troy addressed himself once more to Lady Lydiard. "Did your
Ladyship take the letter into the next room with you?"

"I was too much alarmed to think of it, Mr. Troy. I left it here,
on the table."

"With the envelope open?"

"Yes."

"How long were you absent in the other room?"

"Half an hour or more."

"Ha!" said Mr. Troy to himself. "This complicates it a little."
He reflected for a while, and then turned again to Moody. "Did
any of the servants know of this bank-note being in her
Ladyship's possession?"

"Not one of them," Moody answered.

"Do you suspect any of the servants?"

"Certainly not, sir."

"Are there any workmen employed in the house?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know of any persons who had access to the room while Lady
Lydiard was absent from it?"

"Two visitors called, sir."

"Who were they?"

"Her Ladyship's nephew, Mr. Felix Sweetsir, and the Honorable
Alfred Hardyman."

Mr. Troy shook his head irritably. "I am not speaking of
gentlemen of high position and repute," he said. "It's absurd
even to mention Mr. Sweetsir and Mr. Hardyman. My question
related to strangers who might have obtained access to the
drawing-room--people calling, with her Ladyship's sanction, for
subscriptions, for instance; or people calling with articles of
dress or ornament to be submitted to her Ladyship's inspection.""

"No such persons came to the house with my knowledge," Moody
answered.

Mr. Troy suspended the investigation, and took a turn
thoughtfully in the room. The theory on which his inquiries had
proceeded thus far had failed to produce any results. His
experience warned him to waste no more time on it, and to return
to the starting-point of the investigation--in other words, to
the letter. Shifting his point of view, he turned again to Lady
Lydiard, and tried his questions in a new direction.

"Mr. Moody mentioned just now," he said, "that your Ladyship was
called into the next room before you could seal your letter. On
your return to this room, did you seal the letter?"

"I was busy with the dog," Lady Lydiard answered. "Isabel Miller
was of no use in the boudoir, and I told her to seal it for
 me."

Mr. Troy started. The new direction in which he was pushing his
inquiries began to look like the right direction already. "Miss
Isabel Miller," he proceeded, "has been a resident under your
Ladyship's roof for some little time, I believe?"

"For nearly two years, Mr. Troy."

"As your Ladyship's companion and reader?"

"As my adopted daughter," her Ladyship answered, with marked
emphasis.

Wise Mr. Troy rightly interpreted the emphasis as a warning to
him to suspend the examination of her Ladyship, and to address to
Mr. Moody the far more serious questions which were now to come.

"Did anyone give you the letter before you left the house with
it?" he said to the steward. "Or did you take it yourself?"

"I took it myself, from the table here."

"Was it sealed?"

"Yes."

"Was anybody present when you took the letter from the table?"

"Miss Isabel was present."

"Did you find her alone in the room?"

"Yes, sir."

Lady Lydiard opened her lips to speak, and checked herself. Mr.
Troy, having cleared the ground before him, put the fatal
question.

"Mr. Moody," he said, "when Miss Isabel was instructed to seal
the letter, did she know that a bank-note was inclosed in it?"

Instead of replying, Robert drew back from the lawyer with a look
of horror. Lady Lydiard started to her feet--and checked herself
again, on the point of speaking.

"Answer him, Moody," she said, putting a strong constraint on
herself.

Robert answered very unwillingly. "I took the liberty of
reminding her ladyship that she had left her letter unsealed," he
said. "And I mentioned as my excuse for speaking"--he stopped,
and corrected himself--"_I believe_ I mentioned that a valuable
inclosure was in the letter."

"You believe?" Mr. Troy repeated. "Can't you speak more
positively than that?"

"_I_ can speak positively," said Lady Lydiard, with her eyes on
the lawyer. "Moody did mention the inclosure in the letter--in
Isabel Miller's hearing as well as in mine." She paused, steadily
controlling herself. "And what of that, Mr. Troy?" she added,
very quietly and firmly.

Mr. Troy answered quietly and firmly, on his side. "I am
surprised that your Ladyship should ask the question," he said.

"I persist in repeating the question," Lady Lydiard rejoined. "I
say that Isabel Miller knew of the inclosure in my letter--and I
ask, What of that?"

"And I answer," retorted the impenetrable lawyer, "that the
suspicion of theft rests on your Ladyship's adopted daughter, and
on nobody else."

"It's false!" cried Robert, with a burst of honest indignation.
"I wish to God I had never said a word to you about the loss of
the bank-note! Oh, my Lady! my Lady! don't let him distress you!
What does _he_ know about it?"

"Hush!" said Lady Lydiard. "Control yourself, and hear what he
has to say." She rested her hand on Moody's shoulder, partly to
encourage him, partly to support herself; and, fixing her eyes
again on Mr. Troy, repeated his last words, " 'Suspicion rests on
my adopted daughter, and on nobody else.' Why on nobody else?"

"Is your Ladyship prepared to suspect the Rector of St. Anne's of
embezzlement, or your own relatives and equals of theft?" Mr.
Troy asked. "Does a shadow of doubt rest on the servants? Not if
Mr. Moody's evidence is to be believed. Who, to our own certain
knowledge, had access to the letter while it was unsealed? Who
was alone in the room with it? And who knew of the inclosure in
it? I leave the answer to your Ladyship."

"Isabel Miller is as incapable of an act of theft as I am. There
is my answer, Mr. Troy."

The lawyer bowed resignedly, and advanced to the door.

"Am I to take your Ladyship's generous assertion as finally
disposing of the question of the lost bank-note?" he inquired.

Lady Lydiard met the challenge without shrinking from it.

"No!" she said. "The loss of the bank-note is known out of my
house. Other persons may suspect this innocent girl as you
suspect her. It is due to Isabel's reputation--her unstained
reputation, Mr. Troy!--that she should know what has happened,
and should have an opportunity of defending herself. She is in
the next room, Moody. Bring her here."

Robert's courage failed him: he trembled at the bare idea of
exposing Isabel to the terrible ordeal that awaited her. "Oh, my
Lady!" he pleaded, "think again before you tell the poor girl
that she is suspected of theft. Keep it a secret from her--the
shame of it will break her heart!"

"Keep it a secret," said Lady Lydiard, "when the Rector and the
Rector's wife both know of it! Do you think they will let the
matter rest where it is, even if I could consent to hush it up? I
must write to them; and I can't write anonymously after what has
happened. Put yourself in Isabel's place, and tell me if you
would thank the person who knew you to be innocently exposed to a
disgraceful suspicion, and who concealed it from you? Go, Moody!
The longer you delay, the harder it will be."

With his head sunk on his breast, with anguish written in every
line of his face, Moody obeyed. Passing slowly down the short
passage which connected the two rooms , and still shrinking from
the duty that had been imposed on him, he paused, looking through
the curtains which hung over the entrance to the boudoir.


CHAPTER VII.

THE sight that met Moody's view wrung him to the heart.

Isabel and the dog were at play together. Among the varied
accomplishments possessed by Tommie, the capacity to take his
part at a game of hide-and-seek was one. His playfellow for the
time being put a shawl or a handkerchief over his head, so as to
prevent him from seeing, and then hid among the furniture a
pocketbook, or a cigar-case, or a purse, or anything else that
happened to be at hand, leaving the dog to find it, with his keen
sense of smell to guide him. Doubly relieved by the fit and the
bleeding, Tommie's spirits had revived; and he and Isabel had
just begun their game when Moody looked into the room, charged
with his terrible errand. "You're burning, Tommie, you're
burning!" cried the girl, laughing and clapping her hands. The
next moment she happened to look round and saw Moody through the
parted curtains. His face warned her instantly that something
serious had happened. She advanced a few steps, her eyes resting
on him in silent alarm. He was himself too painfully agitated to
speak. Not a word was exchanged between Lady Lydiard and Mr. Troy
in the next room. In the complete stillness that prevailed, the
dog was heard sniffing and fidgeting about the furniture. Robert
took Isabel by the hand and led her into the drawing-room. "For
God's sake, spare her, my Lady!" he whispered. The lawyer heard
him. "No," said Mr. Troy. "Be merciful, and tell her the truth!"

He spoke to a woman who stood in no need of his advice. The
inherent nobility in Lady Lydiard's nature was aroused: her great
heart offered itself patiently to any sorrow, to any sacrifice.

Putting her arm round Isabel--half caressing her, half supporting
her--Lady Lydiard accepted the whole responsibility and told the
whole truth.

Reeling under the first shock, the poor girl recovered herself
with admirable courage. She raised her head, and eyed the lawyer
without uttering a word. In its artless consciousness of
innocence the look was nothing less than sublime. Addressing
herself to Mr. Troy, Lady Lydiard pointed to Isabel. "Do you see
guilt there?" she asked.

Mr. Troy made no answer. In the melancholy experience of humanity
to which his profession condemned him, he had seen conscious
guilt assume the face of innocence, and helpless innocence admit
the disguise of guilt: the keenest observation, in either case,
failing completely to detect the truth. Lady Lydiard
misinterpreted his silence as expressing the sullen
self-assertion of a heartless man. She turned from him, in
contempt, and held out her hand to Isabel.

"Mr. Troy is not satisfied yet," she said bitterly. "My love,
take my hand, and look me in the face as your equal; I know no
difference of rank at such a time as this. Before God, who hears
you, are you innocent of the theft of the bank-note?"

"Before God, who hears me," Isabel answered, "I am innocent."

Lady Lydiard looked once more at the lawyer, and waited to hear
if he believed _that_.

Mr. Troy took refuge in dumb diplomacy--he made a low bow. It
might have meant that he believed Isabel, or it might have meant
that he modestly withdrew his own opinion into the background.
Lady Lydiard did not condescend to inquire what it meant.

"The sooner we bring this painful scene to an end the better,"
she said. "I shall be glad to avail myself of your professional
assistance, Mr. Troy, within certain limits. Outside of my house,
I beg that you will spare no trouble in tracing the lost money to
the person who has really stolen it. Inside of my house, I must
positively request that the disappearance of the note may never
be alluded to, in any way whatever, until your inquiries have
been successful in discovering the thief. In the meanwhile, Mrs.
Tollmidge and her family must not be sufferers by my loss: I
shall pay the money again." She paused, and pressed Isabel's hand
with affectionate fervor. "My child," she said, "one last word to
you, and I have done. You remain here, with my trust in you, and
my love for you, absolutely unshaken. When you think of what has
been said here to-day, never forget that."

Isabel bent her head, and kissed the kind hand that still held
hers. The high spirit that was in her, inspired by Lady Lydiard's
example, rose equal to the dreadful situation in which she was
placed.

"No, my Lady," she said calmly and sadly; "it cannot be. What
this gentleman has said of me is not to be denied--the
appearances are against me. The letter was open, and I was alone
in the room with it, and Mr. Moody told me that a valuable
inclosure was inside it. Dear and kind mistress! I am not fit to
be a member of your household, I am not worthy to live with the
honest people who serve you, while my innocence is in doubt. It
is enough for me now that _you_ don't doubt it. I can wait
patiently, after that, for the day that gives me back my good
name. Oh, my Lady, don't cry about it! Pray, pray don't cry!"

Lady Lydiard's self-control failed her for the first time.
Isabel's courage had made Isabel dearer to her than ever. She
sank into a chair, and covered her face with her handkerchief.
Mr. Troy turned aside abruptly, and examined a Japanese vase,
without any idea in his mind of what he was looking at. Lady
Lydiard had gravely misjudged him in believing him to be a
heartless man.

Isabel followed the lawyer, and touched him gently on the arm to
rouse his attention.

"I have one relation living, sir--an aunt--who will receive me if
I go to her," she said simply. "Is there any harm in my going?
Lady Lydiard will give you the address when you want me. Spare
her Ladyship, sir, all the pain and trouble that you can."

At last the heart that was in Mr. Troy asserted itself. "You are
a fine creature!" he said, with a burst of enthusiasm. "I agree
with Lady Lydiard--I believe you are innocent, too; and I will
leave no effort untried to find the proof of it." He turned aside
again, and had another look at the Japanese vase.

As the lawyer withdrew himself from observation, Moody approached
Isabel.

Thus far he had stood apart, watching her and listening to her in
silence. Not a look that had crossed her face, not a word that
had fallen from her, had escaped him. Unconsciously on her side,
unconsciously on his side, she now wrought on his nature with a
purifying and ennobling influence which animated it with a new
life. All that had been selfish and violent in his passion for
her left him to return no more. The immeasurable devotion which
he laid at her feet, in the days that were yet to come--the
unyielding courage which cheerfully accepted the sacrifice of
himself when events demanded it at a later period of his
life--struck root in him now. Without attempting to conceal the
tears that were falling fast over his cheeks--striving vainly to
express those new thoughts in him that were beyond the reach of
words--he stood before her the truest friend and servant that
ever woman had.

"Oh, my dear! my heart is heavy for you. Take me to serve you and
help you. Her Ladyship's kindness will permit it, I am sure."

He could say no more. In those simple words the cry of his heart
reached her. "Forgive me, Robert," she answered, gratefully, "if
I said anything to pain you when we spoke together a little while
since. I didn't mean it." She gave him her hand, and looked
timidly over her shoulder at Lady Lydiard. "Let me go!" she said,
in low, broken tones, "Let me go!"

Mr. Troy heard her, and stepped forward to interfere before Lady
Lydiard could speak. The man had recovered his self-control; the
lawyer took his place again on the scene.

"You must not leave us, my dear," he said to Isabel, "until I
have put a question to Mr. Moody in which you are interested. Do
you happen to have the number of the lost bank-note?" he asked,
turning to the steward.

Moody produced his slip of paper with the number on it. Mr. Troy
made two copies of it before he returned the paper. One copy he
put in his pocket, the other he handed to Isabel.

"Keep it carefully," he said. "Neither you nor I know how soon it
may be of use to you."

Receiving the copy from him, she felt mechanically in her apron
for her pocketbook. She had used it, in playing with the dog, as
an object to hide from him; but she had suffered, and was still
suffering, too keenly to be capable of the effort of remembrance.
Moody, eager to help her even in the most trifling thing, guessed
what had happened. "You were playing with Tommie," he said; "is
it in the next room?"

The dog heard his name pronounced through the open door. The next
moment he trotted into the drawing-room with Isabel's pocketbook
in his mouth. He was a strong, well-grown Scotch terrier of the
largest size, with bright, intelligent eyes, and a coat of thick
curling white hair, diversified by two light brown patches on his
back. As he reached the middle of the room, and looked from one
to another of the persons present, the fine sympathy of his race
told him that there was trouble among his human friends. His tail
dropped; he whined softly as he approached Isabel, and laid her
pocketbook at her feet.

She knelt as she picked up the pocketbook, and raised her
playfellow of happier days to take her leave of him. As the dog
put his paws on her shoulders, returning her caress, her first
tears fell. "Foolish of me," she said, faintly, "to cry over a
dog. I can't help it. Good-by, Tommie!"

Putting him away from her gently, she walked towards the door.
The dog instantly followed. She put him away from her, for the
second time, and left him. He was not to be denied; he followed
her again, and took the skirt of her dress in his teeth, as if to
hold her back. Robert forced the dog, growling and resisting with
all his might, to let go of the dress. "Don't be rough with him,"
said Isabel. "Put him on her ladyship's lap; he will be quieter
there." Robert obeyed. He whispered to Lady Lydiard as she
received the dog; she seemed to be still incapable of
speaking--she bowed her head in silent assent. Robert hurried
back to Isabel before she had passed the door. "Not alone!" he
said entreatingly. "Her Ladyship permits it, Isabel. Let me see
you safe to your aunt's house."

Isabel looked at him, felt for him, and yielded.

"Yes," she answered softly; "to make amends for what I said to
you when I was thoughtless and happy!" She waited a little to
compose herself before she spoke her farewell words to Lady
Lydiard. "Good-by, my Lady. Your kindness has not been thrown
away on an ungrateful girl. I love you, and thank you, with all
my heart."

Lady Lydiard rose, placing the dog on the chair as she left it.
She seemed to have grown older by years, instead of by minutes,
in the short interval that had passed since she had hidden her
face from view. "I can't bear it!" she cried, in husky, broken
tones. "Isabel! Isabel! I forbid you to leave me!"

But one person could venture to resist her. That person was Mr.
Troy--and Mr. Troy knew it.

"Control yourself," he said to her in a whisper. "The girl is
doing what is best and most becoming in her position--and is
doing it with a patience and courage wonderful to see. Sh e
places herself under the protection of her nearest relative,
until her character is vindicated and her position in your house
is once more beyond a doubt. Is this a time to throw obstacles in
her way? Be worthy of yourself, Lady Lydiard and think of the day
when she will return to you without the breath of a suspicion to
rest on her!"

There was no disputing with him--he was too plainly in the right
. Lady Lydiard submitted; she concealed the torture that her own
resolution inflicted on her with an endurance which was, indeed,
worthy of herself. Taking Isabel in her arms she kissed her in a
passion of sorrow and love. "My poor dear! My own sweet girl!
don't suppose that this is a parting kiss! I shall see you
again--often and often I shall see you again at your aunt's!" At
a sign from Mr. Troy, Robert took Isabel's arm in his and led her
away. Tommie, watching her from his chair, lifted his little
white muzzle as his playfellow looked back on passing the
doorway. The long, melancholy, farewell howl of the dog was the
last sound Isabel Miller heard as she left the house.



PART THE SECOND.

THE DISCOVERY.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON the day after Isabel's departure, diligent Mr. Troy set forth
for the Head Office in Whitehall to consult the police on the
question of the missing money. He had previously sent information
of the robbery to the Bank of England, and had also advertised
the loss in the daily newspapers.

The air was so pleasant, and the sun was so bright, that he
determined on proceeding to his destination on foot. He was
hardly out of sight of his own offices when he was overtaken by a
friend, who was also walking in the direction of Whitehall. This
gentleman was a person of considerable worldly wisdom and
experience; he had been officially associated with cases of
striking and notorious crime, in which Government had lent its
assistance to discover and punish the criminals. The opinion of a
person in this position might be of the greatest value to Mr.
Troy, whose practice as a solicitor had thus far never brought
him into collision with thieves and mysteries. He accordingly
decided, in Isabel's interests, on confiding to his friend the
nature of his errand to the police. Concealing the name, but
concealing nothing else, he described what had happened on the
previous day at Lady Lydiard's house, and then put the question
plainly to his companion.

"What would you do in my place?"

"In your place," his friend answered quietly, "I should not waste
time and money in consulting the police."

"Not consult the police!" exclaimed Mr. Troy in amazement.
"Surely, I have not made myself understood? I am going to the
Head Office; and I have got a letter of introduction to the chief
inspector in the detective department. I am afraid I omitted to
mention that?"

"It doesn't make any difference," proceeded the other, as coolly
as ever. "You have asked for my advice, and I give you my advice.
Tear up your letter of introduction, and don't stir a step
further in the direction of Whitehall."

Mr. Troy began to understand. "You don't believe in the detective
police?" he said.

"Who _can_ believe in them, who reads his newspaper and remembers
what he reads?" his friend rejoined. "Fortunately for the
detective department, the public in general forgets what it
reads. Go to your club, and look at the criminal history of our
own time, recorded in the newspapers. Every crime is more or less
a mystery. You will see that the mysteries which the police
discover are, almost without exception, mysteries made penetrable
by the commonest capacity, through the extraordinary stupidity
exhibited in the means taken to hide the crime. On the other
hand, let the guilty man or woman be a resolute and intelligent
person, capable of setting his (or her) wits fairly against the
wits of the police--in other words, let the mystery really _be_ a
mystery--and cite me a case if you can (a really difficult and
perplexing case) in which the criminal has not escaped. Mind! I
don't charge the police with neglecting their work. No doubt they
do their best, and take the greatest pains in following the
routine to which they have been trained. It is their misfortune,
not their fault, that there is no man of superior intelligence
among them--I mean no man who is capable, in great emergencies,
of placing himself above conventional methods, and following a
new way of his own. There have been such men in the police--men
naturally endowed with that faculty of mental analysis which can
decompose a mystery, resolve it into its component parts, and
find the clue at the bottom, no matter how remote from ordinary
observation it may be. But those men have died, or have retired.
One of them would have been invaluable to you in the case you
have just mentioned to me. As things are, unless you are wrong in
believing in the young lady's innocence, the person who has
stolen that bank-note will be no easy person to find. In my
opinion, there is only one man now in London who is likely to be
of the slightest assistance to you--and he is not in the police."

"Who is he?" asked Mr. Troy.

"An old rogue, who was once in your branch of the legal
profession," the friend answered. "You may, perhaps, remember the
name: they call him 'Old Sharon.' "

"What! The scoundrel who was struck off the Roll of Attorneys,
years since? Is he still alive?"

"Alive and prospering. He lives in a court or lane running out of
Long Acre, and he offers advice to persons interested in
recovering missing objects of any sort. Whether you have lost
your wife, or lost your cigar-case, Old Sharon is equally useful
to you. He has an inbred capacity for reading the riddle the
right way in cases of mystery, great or small. In short, he
possesses exactly that analytical faculty to which I alluded just
now. I have his address at my office, if you think it worth while
to try him."

"Who can trust such a man?" Mr. Troy objected. "He would be sure
to deceive me."

"You are entirely mistaken. Since he was struck off the Rolls Old
Sharon has discovered that the straight way is, on the whole, the
best way, even in a man's own interests. His consultation fee is
a guinea; and he gives a signed estimate beforehand for any
supplementary expenses that may follow. I can tell you (this is,
of course, strictly between ourselves) that the authorities at my
office took his advice in a Government case that puzzled the
police. We approached him, of course, through persons who were to
be trusted to represent us, without betraying the source from
which their instructions were derived; and we found the old
rascal's advice well worth paying for. It is quite likely that he
may not succeed so well in your case. Try the police, by all
means; and, if they fail, why, there is Sharon as a last resort."

This arrangement commended itself to Mr. Troy's professional
caution. He went on to Whitehall, and he tried the detective
police.

They at once adopted the obvious conclusion to persons of
ordinary capacity--the conclusion that Isabel was the thief.

Acting on this conviction, the authorities sent an experienced
woman from the office to Lady Lydiard's house, to examine the
poor girl's clothes and ornaments before they were packed up and
sent after her to her aunt's. The search led to nothing. The only
objects of any value that were discovered had been presents from
Lady Lydiard. No jewelers' or milliners' bills were among the
papers found in her desk. Not a sign of secret extravagance in
dress was to be seen anywhere. Defeated so far, the police
proposed next to have Isabel privately watched. There might be a
prodigal lover somewhere in the background, with ruin staring him
in the face unless he could raise five hundred pounds. Lady
Lydiard (who had only consented to the search under stress of
persuasive argument from Mr. Troy) resented this ingenious idea
as an insult. She declared that if Isabel was watched the girl
should know of it instantly from her own lips. The police
listened with perfect resignation and decorum, and politely
shifted their ground. A certain suspicion (they remarked) always
rested in cases of this sort on the servants. Would her Ladyship
obje ct to private inquiries into the characters and proceedings
of the servants? Her Ladyship instantly objected, in the most
positive terms. Thereupon the "Inspector" asked for a minute's
private conversation with Mr. Troy. "The thief is certainly a
member of Lady Lydiard's household," this functionary remarked,
in his politely-positive way. "If her Ladyship persists in
refusing to let us make the necessary inquiries, our hands are
tied, and the case comes to an end through no fault of ours. If
her Ladyship changes her mind, perhaps you will drop me a line,
sir, to that effect. Good-morning."

So the experiment of consulting the police came to an untimely
end. The one result obtained was the expression of purblind
opinion by the authorities of the detective department which
pointed to Isabel, or to one of the servants, as the undiscovered
thief. Thinking the matter over in the retirement of his own
office--and not forgetting his promise to Isabel to leave no
means untried of establishing her innocence--Mr. Troy could see
but one alternative left to him. He took up his pen, and wrote to
his friend at the Government office. There was nothing for it now
but to run the risk, and try Old Sharon.


CHAPTER IX.

THE next day, Mr. Troy (taking Robert Moody with him as a
valuable witness) rang the bell at the mean and dirty
lodging-house in which Old Sharon received the clients who stood
in need of his advice.

They were led up stairs to a back room on the second floor of the
house. Entering the room, they discovered through a thick cloud
of tobacco smoke, a small, fat, bald-headed, dirty, old man, in
an arm-chair, robed in a tattered flannel dressing-gown, with a
short pipe in his mouth, a pug-dog on his lap, and a French novel
in his hands.

"Is it business?" asked Old Sharon, speaking in a hoarse,
asthmatical voice, and fixing a pair of bright, shameless, black
eyes attentively on the two visitors.

"It _is_ business," Mr. Troy answered, looking at the old rogue
who had disgraced an honorable profession, as he might have
looked at a reptile which had just risen rampant at his feet.
"What is your fee for a consultation?"

"You give me a guinea, and I'll give you half an hour." With this
reply Old Sharon held out his unwashed hand across the rickety
ink-splashed table at which he was sitting.

Mr. Troy would not have touched him with the tips of his own
fingers for a thousand pounds. He laid the guinea on the table.

Old Sharon burst into a fierce laugh--a laugh strangely
accompanied by a frowning contraction of his eyebrows, and a
frightful exhibition of the whole inside of his mouth. "I'm not
clean enough for you--eh?" he said, with an appearance of being
very much amused. "There's a dirty old man described in this book
that is a little like me." He held up his French novel. "Have you
read it? A capital story--well put together. Ah, you haven't read
it? You have got a pleasure to come. I say, do you mind
tobacco-smoke? I think faster while I smoke--that's all."

Mr. Troy's respectable hand waved a silent permission to smoke,
given under dignified protest.

"All right," said Old Sharon. "Now, get on."

He laid himself back in his chair, and puffed out his smoke, with
eyes lazily half closed, like the eyes of the pug-dog on his lap.
At that moment, indeed there was a curious resemblance between
the two. They both seemed to be preparing themselves, in the same
idle way, for the same comfortable nap.

Mr. Troy stated the circumstances under which the five hundred
pound note had disappeared, in clear and consecutive narrative.
When he had done, Old Sharon suddenly opened his eyes. The
pug-dog suddenly opened his eyes. Old Sharon looked hard at Mr.
Troy. The pug looked hard at Mr. Troy. Old Sharon spoke. The pug
growled.

"I know who you are--you're a lawyer. Don't be alarmed! I never
saw you before; and I don't know your name. What I do know is a
lawyer's statement of facts when I hear it. Who's this?" Old
Sharon looked inquisitively at Moody as he put the question.

Mr. Troy introduced Moody as a competent witness, thoroughly
acquainted with the circumstances, and ready and willing to
answer any questions relating to them. Old Sharon waited a
little, smoking hard and thinking hard. "Now, then!" he burst out
in his fiercely sudden way. "I'm going to get to the root of the
matter."

He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and began his
examination of Moody. Heartily as Mr. Troy despised and disliked
the old rogue, he listened with astonishment and
admiration--literally extorted from him by the marvelous ability
with which the questions were adapted to the end in view. In a
quarter of an hour Old Sharon had extracted from the witness
everything, literally everything down to the smallest detail,
that Moody could tell him. Having now, in his own phrase, "got to
the root of the matter," he relighted his pipe with a grunt of
satisfaction, and laid himself back in his old armchair.

"Well?" said Mr. Troy. "Have you formed your opinion?"

"Yes; I've formed my opinion."

"What is it?"

Instead of replying, Old Sharon winked confidentially at Mr.
Troy, and put a question on his side.

"I say! is a ten-pound note much of an object to you?"

"It depends on what the money is wanted for," answered Mr. Troy.

"Look here," said Old Sharon; "I give you an opinion for your
guinea; but, mind this, it's an opinion founded on hearsay--and
you know as a lawyer what that is worth. Venture your ten
pounds--in plain English, pay me for my time and trouble in a
baffling and difficult case--and I'll give you an opinion founded
on my own experience."

"Explain yourself a little more clearly," said Mr. Troy. "What do
you guarantee to tell us if we venture the ten pounds?"

"I guarantee to name the person, or the persons, on whom the
suspicion really rests. And if you employ me after that, I
guarantee (before you pay me a halfpenny more) to prove that I am
right by laying my hand on the thief."

"Let us have the guinea opinion first," said Mr. Troy.

Old Sharon made another frightful exhibition of the whole inside
of his mouth; his laugh was louder and fiercer than ever. "I like
you!" he said to Mr. Troy, "you are so devilish fond of your
money. Lord! how rich you must be! Now listen. Here's the guinea
opinion: Suspect, in this case, the very last person on whom
suspicion could possibly fall."

Moody, listening attentively, started, and changed color at those
last words. Mr. Troy looked thoroughly disappointed and made no
attempt to conceal it.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"All?" retorted the cynical vagabond. "You're a pretty lawyer!
What more can I say, when I don't know for certain whether the
witness who has given me my information has misled me or not?
Have I spoken to the girl and formed my own opinion? No! Have I
been introduced among the servants (as errand-boy, or to clean
the boots and shoes, or what not), and have I formed my own
judgement of _them?_ No! I take your opinions for granted, and I
tell you how I should set to work myself if they were _my_
opinions too--and that's a guinea's-worth, a devilish good
guinea's-worth to a rich man like you!"

Old Sharon's logic produced a certain effect on Mr. Troy, in
spite of himself. It was smartly put from his point of
view--there was no denying that.

"Even if I consented to your proposal," he said, "I should object
to your annoying the young lady with impertinent questions, or to
your being introduced as a spy into a respectable house."

Old Sharon doubled his dirty fists and drummed with them on the
rickety table in a comical frenzy of impatience while Mr. Troy
was speaking.

"What the devil do you know about my way of doing my business?"
he burst out when the lawyer had done. "One of us two is talking
like a born idiot--and (mind this) it isn't me. Look here! Your
young lady goes out for a walk, and she meets with a dirty,
shabby old beggar--I look like a shabby old beggar already, don't
I? Very good. This dirty old wretch whines and whimpers and tells
a long story, and gets sixpence out of the girl--and knows her by
that time, inside and out, as well as if he had made her--and,
mark! hasn't asked her a single ques tion, and, instead of
annoying her, has made her happy in the performance of a
charitable action. Stop a bit! I haven't done with you yet. Who
blacks your boots and shoes? Look here!" He pushed his pug-dog
off his lap, dived under the table, appeared again with an old
boot and a bottle of blackening, and set to work with tigerish
activity. "I'm going out for a walk, you know, and I may as well
make myself smart." With that announcement, he began to sing over
his work--a song of sentiment, popular in England in the early
part of the present century--"She's all my fancy painted her;
she's lovely, she's divine; but her heart it is another's; and it
never can be mine! Too-ral-loo-ral-loo'. I like a love-song.
Brush away! brush away! till I see my own pretty face in the
blacking. Hey! Here's a nice, harmless, jolly old man! sings and
jokes over his work, and makes the kitchen quite cheerful. What's
that you say? He's a stranger, and don't talk to him too freely.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself to speak in that way of a
poor old fellow with one foot in the grave. Mrs. Cook will give
him a nice bit of dinner in the scullery; and John Footman will
look out an old coat for him. And when he's heard everything he
wants to hear, and doesn't come back again the next day to his
work--what do they think of it in the servants' hall? Do they
say, 'We've had a spy among us!' Yah! you know better than that,
by this time. The cheerful old man has been run over in the
street, or is down with the fever, or has turned up his toes in
the parish dead-house--that's what they say in the servants'
hall. Try me in your own kitchen, and see if your servants take
me for a spy. Come, come, Mr. Lawyer! out with your ten pounds,
and don't waste any more precious time about it!"

"I will consider and let you know," said Mr. Troy.

Old Sharon laughed more ferociously than ever, and hobbled round
the table in a great hurry to the place at which Moody was
sitting. He laid one hand on the steward's shoulder, and pointed
derisively with the other to Mr. Troy.

"I say, Mr. Silent-man! Bet you five pounds I never hear of that
lawyer again!"

Silently attentive all through the interview (except when he was
answering questions), Moody only replied in the fewest words. "I
don't bet," was all he said. He showed no resentment at Sharon's
familiarity, and he appeared to find no amusement in Sharon's
extraordinary talk. The old vagabond seemed actually to produce a
serious impression on him! When Mr. Troy set the example of
rising to go, he still kept his seat, and looked at the lawyer as
if he regretted leaving the atmosphere of tobacco smoke reeking
in the dirty room.

"Have you anything to say before we go?" Mr. Troy asked.

Moody rose slowly and looked at Old Sharon. "Not just now, sir,"
he replied, looking away again, after a moment's reflection.

Old Sharon interpreted Moody's look and Moody's reply from his
own peculiar point of view. He suddenly drew the steward away
into a corner of the room.

"I say!" he began, in a whisper. "Upon your solemn word of honor,
you know--are you as rich as the lawyer there?"

"Certainly not."

"Look here! It's half price to a poor man. If you feel like
coming back, on your own account--five pounds will do from _you_.
There! there! Think of it!--think of it!"

"Now, then!" said Mr. Troy, waiting for his companion, with the
door open in his hand. He looked back at Sharon when Moody joined
him. The old vagabond was settled again in his armchair, with his
dog in his lap, his pipe in his mouth, and his French novel in
his hand; exhibiting exactly the picture of frowzy comfort which
he had presented when his visitors first entered the room.

"Good-day," said Mr. Troy, with haughty condescension.

"Don't interrupt me!" rejoined Old Sharon, absorbed in his novel.
"You've had your guinea's worth. Lord! what a lovely book this
is! Don't interrupt me!"

"Impudent scoundrel!" said Mr. Troy, when he and Moody were in
the street again. "What could my friend mean by recommending him?
Fancy his expecting me to trust him with ten pounds! I consider
even the guinea completely thrown away."

"Begging your pardon, sir," said Moody, "I don't quite agree with
you there."

"What! you don't mean to tell me you understand that oracular
sentence of his--'Suspect the very last person on whom suspicion
could possibly fall.' Rubbish!"

"I don't say I understand it, sir. I only say it has set me
thinking."

"Thinking of what? Do your suspicions point to the thief?"

"If you will please to excuse me, Mr. Troy, I should like to wait
a while before I answer that."

Mr. Troy suddenly stood still, and eyed his companion a little
distrustfully.

"Are you going to turn detective-policeman on your own account?"
he asked.

"There's nothing I won't turn to, and try, to help Miss Isabel in
this matter," Moody answered, firmly. "I have saved a few hundred
pounds in Lady Lydiard's service, and I am ready to spend every
farthing of it, if I can only discover the thief."

Mr. Troy walked on again. "Miss Isabel seems to have a good
friend in you," he said. He was (perhaps unconsciously) a little
offended by the independent tone in which the steward spoke,
after he had himself engaged to take the vindication of the
girl's innocence into his own hands.

"Miss Isabel has a devoted servant and slave in me!" Moody
answered, with passionate enthusiasm.

"Very creditable; I haven't a word to say against it," Mr. Troy
rejoined. "But don't forget that the young lady has other devoted
friends besides you. I am her devoted friend, for instance--I
have promised to serve her, and I mean to keep my word. You will
excuse me for adding that my experience and discretion are quite
as likely to be useful to her as your enthusiasm. I know the
world well enough to be careful in trusting strangers. It will do
you no harm, Mr. Moody, to follow my example."

Moody accepted his reproof with becoming patience and
resignation. "If you have anything to propose, sir, that will be
of service to Miss Isabel," he said, "I shall be happy if I can
assist you in the humblest capacity."

"And if not?" Mr. Troy inquired, conscious of having nothing to
propose as he asked the question.

"In that case, sir, I must take my own course, and blame nobody
but myself if it leads me astray."

Mr. Troy said no more: he parted from Moody at the next turning.

Pursuing the subject privately in his own mind, he decided on
taking the earliest opportunity of visiting Isabel at her aunt's
house, and on warning her, in her future intercourse with Moody,
not to trust too much to the steward's discretion. "I haven't a
doubt," thought the lawyer, "of what he means to do next. The
infatuated fool is going back to Old Sharon!"


CHAPTER X.

RETURNING to his office, Mr. Troy discovered, among the
correspondence that was waiting for him, a letter from the very
person whose welfare was still the uppermost subject in his mind.
Isabel Miller wrote in these terms:

"Dear Sir--My aunt, Miss Pink, is very desirous of consulting you
professionally at the earliest opportunity. Although South Morden
is within little more than half an hour's railway ride from
London, Miss Pink does not presume to ask you to visit her, being
well aware of the value of your time. Will you, therefore, be so
kind as to let me know when it will be convenient to you to
receive my aunt at your office in London? Believe me, dear sir,
respectfully yours, ISABEL MILLER. P.S.--I am further instructed
to say that the regrettable event at Lady Lydiard's house is the
proposed subject of the consultation. The Lawn, South Morden.
Thursday."

Mr. Troy smiled as he read the letter. "Too formal for a young
girl!" he said to himself. "Every word of it has been dictated by
Miss Pink." He was not long in deciding what course he should
take. There was a pressing necessity for cautioning Isabel, and
here was his opportunity. He sent for his head clerk, and looked
at his list of engagements for the day. There was nothing set
down in the book which the clerk was not quite as well able to do
as the master. Mr. Troy consulted his railway-guide, ordered his
cab, and caught the next train to South Mord en.

South Morden was then (and remains to this day) one of those
primitive agricultural villages, passed over by the march of
modern progress, which are still to be found in the near
neighborhood of London. Only the slow trains stopped at the
station and there was so little to do that the station-master and
his porter grew flowers on the embankment, and trained creepers
over the waiting-room window. Turning your back on the railway,
and walking along the one street of South Morden, you found
yourself in the old England of two centuries since. Gabled
cottages, with fast-closed windows; pigs and poultry in quiet
possession of the road; the venerable church surrounded by its
shady burial-ground; the grocer's shop which sold everything, and
the butcher's shop which sold nothing; the scarce inhabitants who
liked a good look at a stranger, and the unwashed children who
were pictures of dirty health; the clash of the iron-chained
bucket in the public well, and the thump of the falling nine-pins
in the skittle-ground behind the public-house; the horse-pond on
the one bit of open ground, and the old elm-tree with the wooden
seat round it on the other--these were some of the objects that
you saw, and some of the noises that you heard in South Morden,
as you passed from one end of the village to the other.

About half a mile beyond the last of the old cottages, modern
England met you again under the form of a row of little villas,
set up by an adventurous London builder who had bought the land a
bargain. Each villa stood in its own little garden, and looked
across a stony road at the meadow lands and softly-rising wooded
hills beyond. Each villa faced you in the sunshine with the
horrid glare of new red brick, and forced its nonsensical name on
your attention, traced in bright paint on the posts of its
entrance gate. Consulting the posts as he advanced, Mr. Troy
arrived in due course of time at the villa called The Lawn, which
derived its name apparently from a circular patch of grass in
front of the house. The gate resisting his efforts to open it, he
rang the bell.

Admitted by a trim, clean, shy little maid-servant, Mr. Troy
looked about him in amazement. Turn which way he might, he found
himself silently confronted by posted and painted instructions to
visitors, which forbade him to do this, and commanded him to do
that, at every step of his progress from the gate to the house.
On the side of the lawn a label informed him that he was not to
walk on the grass. On the other side a painted hand pointed along
a boundary-wall to an inscription which warned him to go that way
if he had business in the kitchen. On the gravel walk at the foot
of the housesteps words, neatly traced in little white shells,
reminded him not to "forget the scraper". On the doorstep he was
informed, in letters of lead, that he was "Welcome!" On the mat
in the passage bristly black words burst on his attention,
commanding him to "wipe his shoes." Even the hat-stand in the
hall was not allowed to speak for itself; it had "Hats and
Cloaks" inscribed on it, and it issued its directions
imperatively in the matter of your wet umbrella--"Put it here!"

Giving the trim little servant his card, Mr. Troy was introduced
to a reception-room on the lower floor. Before he had time to
look round him the door was opened again from without, and Isabel
stole into the room on tiptoe. She looked worn and anxious. When
she shook hands with the old lawyer the charming smile that he
remembered so well was gone.

"Don't say you have seen me," she whispered. "I am not to come
into the room till my aunt sends for me. Tell me two things
before I run away again. How is Lady Lydiard? And have you
discovered the thief?"

"Lady Lydiard was well when I last saw her; and we have not yet
succeeded in discovering the thief." Having answered the
questions in those terms, Mr. Troy decided on cautioning Isabel
on the subject of the steward while he had the chance. "One
question on my side," he said, holding her back from the door by
the arm. "Do you expect Moody to visit you here?"

"I am _sure_ he will visit me," Isabel answered warmly. "He has
promised to come here at my request. I never knew what a kind
heart Robert Moody had till this misfortune fell on me. My aunt,
who is not easily taken with strangers, respects and admires him.
I can't tell you how good he was to me on the journey here--and
how kindly, how nobly, he spoke to me when we parted." She
paused, and turned her head away. The tears were rising in her
eyes. "In my situation," she said faintly, "kindness is very
keenly felt. Don't notice me, Mr. Troy."

The lawyer waited a moment to let her recover herself.

"I agree entirely, my dear, in your opinion of Moody," he said.
"At the same time, I think it right to warn you that his zeal in
your service may possibly outrun his discretion. He may feel too
confidently about penetrating the mystery of the missing money;
and, unless you are on your guard, he may raise false hopes in
you when you next see him. Listen to any advice that he may give
you, by all means. But, before you decide on being guided by his
opinion, consult my older experience, and hear what I have to say
on the subject. Don't suppose that I am attempting to make you
distrust this good friend," he added, noticing the look of uneasy
surprise which Isabel fixed on him. "No such idea is in my mind.
I only warn you that Moody's eagerness to be of service to you
may mislead him. You understand me."

"Yes, sir," replied Isabel coldly; "I understand you. Please let
me go now. My aunt will be down directly; and she must not find
me here." She curtseyed with distant respect, and left the room.

"So much for trying to put two ideas together into a girl's
mind!" thought Mr. Troy, when he was alone again. "The little
fool evidently thinks I am jealous of Moody's place in her
estimation. Well! I have done my duty--and I can do no more."

He looked round the room. Not a chair was out of its place, not a
speck of dust was to be seen. The brightly-perfect polish of the
table made your eyes ache; the ornaments on it looked as if they
had never been touched by mortal hand; the piano was an object
for distant admiration, not an instrument to be played on; the
carpet made Mr. Troy look nervously at the soles of his shoes;
and the sofa (protected by layers of white crochet-work) said as
plainly as if in words, "Sit on me if you dare!" Mr. Troy
retreated to a bookcase at the further end of the room. The books
fitted the shelves to such absolute perfection that he had some
difficulty in taking one of them out. When he had succeeded, he
found himself in possession of a volume of the History of
England. On the fly-leaf he encountered another written
warning:--"This book belongs to Miss Pink's Academy for Young
Ladies, and is not to be removed from the library." The date,
which was added, referred to a period of ten years since. Miss
Pink now stood revealed as a retired schoolmistress, and Mr. Troy
began to understand some of the characteristic peculiarities of
that lady's establishment which had puzzled him up to the present
time.

He had just succeeded in putting the book back again when the
door opened once more, and Isabel's aunt entered the room.

If Miss Pink could, by any possible conjuncture of circumstances,
have disappeared mysteriously from her house and her friends, the
police would have found the greatest difficulty in composing the
necessary description of the missing lady. The acutest observer
could have discovered nothing that was noticeable or
characteristic in her personal appearance. The pen of the present
writer portrays her in despair by a series of negatives. She was
not young, she was not old; she was neither tall nor short, nor
stout nor thin; nobody could call her features attractive, and
nobody could call them ugly; there was nothing in her voice, her
expression, her manner, or her dress that differed in any
appreciable degree from the voice, expression, manner, and dress
of five hundred thousand other single ladies of her age and
position in the world. If you had asked her to describe herself,
she would have answered, "I am  a gentlew oman"; and if you had
further inquired which of her numerous accomplishments took
highest rank in her own esteem, she would have replied, "My
powers of conversation." For the rest, she was Miss Pink, of
South Morden; and, when that has been said, all has been said.

"Pray be seated, sir. We have had a beautiful day, after the
long-continued wet weather. I am told that the season is very
unfavorable for wall-fruit. May I offer you some refreshment
after your journey?" In these terms and in the smoothest of
voices, Miss Pink opened the interview.

Mr. Troy made a polite reply, and added a few strictly
conventional remarks on the beauty of the neighborhood. Not even
a lawyer could sit in Miss Pink's presence, and hear Miss Pink's
conversation, without feeling himself called upon (in the nursery
phrase) to "be on his best behavior".

"It is extremely kind of you, Mr. Troy, to favor me with this
visit," Miss Pink resumed. "I am well aware that the time of
professional gentlemen is of especial value to them; and I will
therefore ask you to excuse me if I proceed abruptly to the
subject on which I desire to consult your experience."

Here the lady modestly smoothed out her dress over her knees, and
the lawyer made a bow. Miss Pink's highly-trained conversation
had perhaps one fault--it was not, strictly speaking,
conversation at all. In its effect on her hearers it rather
resembled the contents of a fluently conventional letter, read
aloud.

"The circumstances under which my niece Isabel has left Lady
Lydiard's house," Miss Pink proceeded, "are so indescribably
painful--I will go further, I will say so deeply
humiliating--that I have forbidden her to refer to them again in
my presence, or to mention them in the future to any living
creature besides myself. You are acquainted with those
circumstances, Mr. Troy; and you will understand my indignation
when I first learnt that my sister's child had been suspected of
theft. I have not the honor of being acquainted with Lady
Lydiard. She is not a Countess, I believe? Just so! Her husband
was only a Baron. I am not acquainted with Lady Lydiard; and I
will not trust myself to say what I think of her conduct to my
niece."

"Pardon me, madam," Mr. Troy interposed. "Before you say any more
about Lady Lydiard, I really must beg leave to observe--"

"Pardon _me_," Miss Pink rejoined. "I never form a hasty
judgment. Lady Lydiard's conduct is beyond the reach of any
defense, no matter how ingenious it may be. You may not be aware,
sir, that in receiving my niece under her roof her Ladyship was
receiving a gentlewoman by birth as well as by education. My late
lamented sister was the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of
England. I need hardly remind you that, as such, she was a born
lady. Under favoring circumstances, Isabel's maternal grandfather
might have been Archbishop of Canterbury, and have taken
precedence of the whole House of Peers, the Princes of the blood
Royal alone excepted. I am not prepared to say that my niece is
equally well connected on her father's side. My sister
surprised--I will not add shocked--us when she married a chemist.
At the same time, a chemist is not a tradesman. He is a gentleman
at one end of the profession of Medicine, and a titled physician
is a gentleman at the other end. That is all. In inviting Isabel
to reside with her, Lady Lydiard, I repeat, was bound to remember
that she was associating herself with a young gentlewoman. She
has _not_ remembered this, which is one insult; and she has
suspected my niece of theft, which is another."

Miss Pink paused to take breath. Mr. Troy made a second attempt
to get a hearing.

"Will you kindly permit me, madam, to say a few words?"

"No!" said Miss Pink, asserting the most immovable obstinacy
under the blandest politeness of manner. "Your time, Mr. Troy, is
really too valuable! Not even your trained intellect can excuse
conduct which is manifestly _in_excusable on the face of it. Now
you know my opinion of Lady Lydiard, you will not be surprised to
hear that I decline to trust her Ladyship. She may, or she may
not, cause the necessary inquiries to be made for the vindication
of my niece's character. In a matter so serious as this--I may
say, in a duty which I owe to the memories of my sister and my
parents--I will not leave the responsibility to Lady Lydiard. I
will take it on myself. Let me add that I am able to pay the
necessary expenses. The earlier years of my life, Mr. Troy, have
been passed in the tuition of young ladies. I have been happy in
meriting the confidence of parents; and I have been strict in
observing the golden rules of economy. On my retirement, I have
been able to invest a modest, a very modest, little fortune in
the Funds. A portion of it is at the service of my niece for the
recovery of her good name; and I desire to place the necessary
investigation confidentially in your hands. You are acquainted
with the case, and the case naturally goes to you. I could not
prevail on myself--I really could not prevail on myself--to
mention it to a stranger. That is the business on which I wished
to consult you. Please say nothing more about Lady Lydiard--the
subject is inexpressibly disagreeable to me. I will only trespass
on your kindness to tell me if I have succeeded in making myself
understood."

Miss Pink leaned back in her chair, at the exact angle permitted
by the laws of propriety; rested her left elbow on the palm of
her right hand, and lightly supported her cheek with her
forefinger and thumb. In this position she waited Mr. Troy's
answer--the living picture of human obstinacy in its most
respectable form.

If Mr. Troy had not been a lawyer--in other words, if he had not
been professionally capable of persisting in his own course, in
the face of every conceivable difficulty and discouragement--Miss
Pink might have remained in undisturbed possession of her own
opinions. As it was, Mr. Troy had got his hearing at last; and no
matter how obstinately she might close her eyes to it, Miss Pink
was now destined to have the other side of the case presented to
her view.

"I am sincerely obliged to you, madam, for the expression of your
confidence in me," Mr. Troy began; "at the same time, I must beg
you to excuse me if I decline to accept your proposal."

Miss Pink had not expected to receive such an answer as this. The
lawyer's brief refusal surprised and annoyed her.

"Why do you decline to assist me?" she asked.

"Because," answered Mr. Troy, "my services are already engaged,
in Miss Isabel's interest, by a client whom I have served for
more than twenty years. My client is--"

Miss Pink anticipated the coming disclosure. "You need not
trouble yourself, sir, to mention your client's name," she said.

"My client," persisted Mr. Troy, "loves Miss Isabel dearly."

"That is a matter of opinion," Miss Pink interposed.

"And believes in Miss Isabel's innocence," proceeded the
irrepressible lawyer, "as firmly as you believe in it yourself."

Miss Pink (being human) had a temper; and Mr. Troy had found his
way to it.

"If Lady Lydiard believes in my niece's innocence," said Miss
Pink, suddenly sitting bolt upright in her chair, "why has my
niece been compelled, in justice to herself, to leave Lady
Lydiard's house?"

"You will admit, madam," Mr. Troy answered cautiously, "that we
are all of us liable, in this wicked world, to be the victims of
appearances. Your niece is a victim--an innocent victim. She
wisely withdraws from Lady Lydiard's house until appearances are
proved to be false and her position is cleared up."

Miss Pink had her reply ready. "That is simply acknowledging, in
other words, that my niece is suspected. I am only a woman, Mr.
Troy--but it is not quite so easy to mislead me as you seem to
suppose."

Mr. Troy's temper was admirably trained. But it began to
acknowledge that Miss Pink's powers of irritation could sting to
some purpose.

"No intention of misleading you, madam, has ever crossed my
mind," he rejoined warmly. "As for your niece, I can tell you
this. In all my experience of Lady Lydiard, I never saw her so
distressed as she was when Miss Isabel left the house!"

"Indeed!" said Miss Pink, with an incredulous smile. "In my rank
of life, when we feel distressed about a person, we do our best
to comfort that person by a kind letter or an early visit. But
then I am not a lady of title."

"Lady Lydiard engaged herself to call on Miss Isabel in my
hearing," said Mr. Troy. "Lady Lydiard is the most generous woman
living!"

"Lady Lydiard is here!" cried a joyful voice on the other side of
the door.

At the same moment, Isabel burst into the room in a state of
excitement which actually ignored the formidable presence of Miss
Pink. "I beg your pardon, aunt! I was upstairs at the window, and
I saw the carriage stop at the gate. And Tommie has come, too!
The darling saw me at the window!" cried the poor girl, her eyes
sparkling with delight as a perfect explosion of barking made
itself heard over the tramp of horses' feet and the crash of
carriage wheels outside.

Miss Pink rose slowly, with a dignity that looked capable of
adequately receiving--not one noble lady only, but the whole
peerage of England.

"Control yourself, dear Isabel," she said. "No well-bred young
lady permits herself to become unduly excited. Stand by my
side--a little behind me."

Isabel obeyed. Mr. Troy kept his place, and privately enjoyed his
triumph over Miss Pink. If Lady Lydiard had been actually in
league with him, she could not have chosen a more opportune time
for her visit. A momentary interval passed. The carriage drew up
at the door; the horses trampled on the gravel; the bell rung
madly; the uproar of Tommie, released from the carriage and
clamoring to be let in, redoubled its fury. Never before had such
an unruly burst of noises invaded the tranquility of Miss Pink's
villa!


CHAPTER XI.

THE trim little maid-servant ran upstairs from her modest little
kitchen, trembling at the terrible prospect of having to open the
door. Miss Pink, deafened by the barking, had just time to say,
"What a very ill-behaved dog!" when a sound of small objects
overthrown in the hall, and a scurrying of furious claws across
the oil-cloth, announced that Tommie had invaded the house. As
the servant appeared, introducing Lady Lydiard, the dog ran in.
He made one frantic leap at Isabel, which would certainly have
knocked her down but for the chair that happened to be standing
behind her. Received on her lap, the faithful creature half
smothered her with his caresses. He barked, he shrieked, in his
joy at seeing her again. He jumped off her lap and tore round and
round the room at the top of his speed; and every time he passed
Miss Pink he showed the whole range of his teeth and snarled
ferociously at her ankles. Having at last exhausted his
superfluous energy, he leaped back again on Isabel's lap, with
his tongue quivering in his open mouth--his tail wagging softly,
and his eye on Miss Pink, inquiring how she liked a dog in her
drawing-room!

"I hope my dog has not disturbed you, ma'am?" said Lady Lydiard,
advancing from the mat at the doorway, on which she had patiently
waited until the raptures of Tommie subsided into repose.

Miss Pink, trembling between terror and indignation, acknowledged
Lady Lydiard's polite inquiry by a ceremonious bow, and an answer
which administered by implication a dignified reproof. "Your
Ladyship's dog does not appear to be a very well-trained animal,"
the ex-schoolmistress remarked.

"Well trained?" Lady Lydiard repeated, as if the expression was
perfectly unintelligible to her. "I don't think you have had much
experience of dogs, ma'am." She turned to Isabel, and embraced
her tenderly. "Give me a kiss, my dear--you don't know how
wretched I have been since you left me." She looked back again at
Miss Pink. "You are not, perhaps, aware, ma'am, that my dog is
devotedly attached to your niece. A dog's love has been
considered by many great men (whose names at the moment escape
me) as the most touching and disinterested of all earthly
affections." She looked the other way, and discovered the lawyer.
"How do you do, Mr. Troy? It's a pleasant surprise to find you
here The house was so dull without Isabel that I really couldn't
put off seeing her any longer. When you are more used to Tommie,
Miss Pink, you will understand and admire him. _You_ understand
and admire him, Isabel--don't you? My child! you are not looking
well. I shall take you back with me, when the horses have had
their rest. We shall never be happy away from each other."

Having expressed her sentiments, distributed her greetings, and
defended her dog--all, as it were, in one breath--Lady Lydiard
sat down by Isabel's side, and opened a large green fan that hung
at her girdle. "You have no idea, Miss Pink, how fat people
suffer in hot weather," said the old lady, using her fan
vigorously.

Miss Pink's eyes dropped modestly to the ground--"fat" was such a
coarse word to use, if a lady _must_ speak of her own superfluous
flesh! "May I offer some refreshment?" Miss Pink asked,
mincingly. "A cup of tea?"

Lady Lydiard shook her head.

"A glass of water?"

Lady Lydiard declined this last hospitable proposal with an
exclamation of disgust. "Have you got any beer?" she inquired.

"I beg your Ladyship's pardon," said Miss Pink, doubting the
evidence of her own ears. "Did you say--beer?"

Lady Lydiard gesticulated vehemently with her fan. "Yes, to be
sure! Beer! beer!"

Miss Pink rose, with a countenance expressive of genteel disgust,
and rang the bell. "I think you have beer downstairs, Susan?" she
said, when the maid appeared at the door.

"Yes, miss."

"A glass of beer for Lady Lydiard," said Miss Pink--under
protest.

"Bring it in a jug," shouted her Ladyship, as the maid left the
room. "I like to froth it up for myself," she continued,
addressing Miss Pink. "Isabel sometimes does it for me, when she
is at home--don't you, my dear?"

Miss Pink had been waiting her opportunity to assert her own
claim to the possession of her own niece, from the time when Lady
Lydiard had coolly declared her intention of taking Isabel back
with her. The opportunity now presented itself.

"Your Ladyship will pardon me," she said, "if I remark that my
niece's home is under my humble roof. I am properly sensible, I
hope, of your kindness to Isabel, but while she remains the
object of a disgraceful suspicion she remains with me."

Lady Lydiard closed her fan with an angry snap.

"You are completely mistaken, Miss Pink. You may not mean it--but
you speak most unjustly if you say that your niece is an object
of suspicion to me, or to anybody in my house."

Mr. Troy, quietly listening up to this point now interposed to
stop the discussion before it could degenerate into a personal
quarrel. His keen observation, aided by his accurate knowledge of
his client's character, had plainly revealed to him what was
passing in Lady Lydiard's mind. She had entered the house,
feeling (perhaps unconsciously) a jealousy of Miss Pink, as her
predecessor in Isabel's affections, and as the natural
protectress of the girl under existing circumstances. Miss Pink's
reception of her dog had additionally irritated the old lady. She
had taken a malicious pleasure in shocking the schoolmistress's
sense of propriety--and she was now only too ready to proceed to
further extremities on the delicate question of Isabel's
justification for leaving her house. For Isabel's own sake,
therefore--to say nothing of other reasons--it was urgently
desirable to keep the peace between the two ladies. With this
excellent object in view, Mr. Troy seized his opportunity of
striking into the conversation for the first time.

"Pardon me, Lady Lydiard," he said, "you are speaking of a
subject which has been already sufficiently discussed between
Miss Pink and myself. I think we shall do better not to dwell
uselessly on past events, but to direct our attention to the
future. We are all equally satisfied of the complete rectitude of
Miss Isabel's conduct, and we are all equally interested in the
vindication of her good name."

Whether these temperate words would of themselves have exercised
the pacifying influence at which Mr. Troy aimed may be doubtful.
But, as he ceased speaking, a powerful auxiliary appeared in the
shape of the beer. Lady Lydiard seized on  the jug, a nd filled
the tumbler for herself with an unsteady hand. Miss Pink,
trembling for the integrity of her carpet, and scandalized at
seeing a peeress drinking beer like a washer-woman, forgot the
sharp answer that was just rising to her lips when the lawyer
interfered. "Small!" said Lady Lydiard, setting down the empty
tumbler, and referring to the quality of the beer. "But very
pleasant and refreshing. What's the servant's name? Susan? Well,
Susan, I was dying of thirst and you have saved my life. You can
leave the jug--I dare say I shall empty it before I go."

Mr. Troy, watching Miss Pink's face, saw that it was time to
change the subject again.

"Did you notice the old village, Lady Lydiard, on your way here?"
he asked. "The artists consider it one of the most picturesque
places in England."

"I noticed that it was a very dirty village," Lady Lydiard
answered, still bent on making herself disagreeable to Miss Pink.
The artists may say what they please; I see nothing to admire in
rotten cottages, and bad drainage, and ignorant people. I suppose
the neighborhood has its advantages. It looks dull enough, to my
mind."

Isabel had hitherto modestly restricted her exertions to keeping
Tommie quiet on her lap. Like Mr. Troy, she occasionally looked
at her aunt--and she now made a timid attempt to defend the
neighborhood as a duty that she owed to Miss Pink.

"Oh, my Lady! don't say it's a dull neighborhood," she pleaded.
"There are such pretty walks all round us. And, when you get to
the hills, the view is beautiful."

Lady Lydiard's answer to this was a little masterpiece of
good-humored contempt. She patted Isabel's cheek, and said,
"Pooh! Pooh!"

"Your Ladyship does not admire the beauties of Nature," Miss Pink
remarked, with a compassionate smile. "As we get older, no doubt
our sight begins to fail--"

"And we leave off canting about the beauties of Nature," added
Lady Lydiard. "I hate the country. Give me London, and the
pleasures of society."

"Come! come! Do the country justice, Lady Lydiard!" put in
peace-making Mr. Troy. "There is plenty of society to be found
out of London--as good society as the world can show."

"The sort of society," added Miss Pink, "which is to be found,
for example, in this neighborhood. Her Ladyship is evidently not
aware that persons of distinction surround us, whichever way we
turn. I may instance among others, the Honorable Mr. Hardyman--"

Lady Lydiard, in the act of pouring out a second glassful of
beer, suddenly set down the jug.

"Who is that you're talking of, Miss Pink?"

"I am talking of our neighbor, Lady Lydiard--the Honorable Mr.
Hardyman."

"Do you mean Alfred Hardyman--the man who breeds the horses?"

"The distinguished gentleman who owns the famous stud-farm," said
Miss Pink, correcting the bluntly-direct form in which Lady
Lydiard had put her question.

"Is he in the habit of visiting here?" the old lady inquired,
with a sudden appearance of anxiety. "Do you know him?"

"I had the honor of being introduced to Mr. Hardyman at our last
flower show," Miss Pink replied. "He has not yet favored me with
a visit."

Lady Lydiard's anxiety appeared to be to some extent relieved.

"I knew that Hardyman's farm was in this county," she said; "but
I had no notion that it was in the neighborhood of South Morden.
How far away is he--ten or a dozen miles, eh?"

"Not more than three miles," answered Miss Pink. "We consider him
quite a near neighbor of ours."

Renewed anxiety showed itself in Lady Lydiard. She looked round
sharply at Isabel. The girl's head was bent so low over the rough
head of the dog that her face was almost entirely concealed from
view. So far as appearances went, she seemed to be entirely
absorbed in fondling Tommie. Lady Lydiard roused her with a tap
of the green fan.

"Take Tommie out, Isabel, for a run in the garden," she said. "He
won't sit still much longer--and he may annoy Miss Pink. Mr.
Troy, will you kindly help Isabel to keep my ill-trained dog in
order?"

Mr. Troy got on his feet, and, not very willingly, followed
Isabel out of the room. "They will quarrel now, to a dead
certainty!" he thought to himself, as he closed the door. "Have
you any idea of what this means?" he said to his companion, as he
joined her in the hall. "What has Mr. Hardyman done to excite all
this interest in him?"

Isabel's guilty color rose. She knew perfectly well that
Hardyman's unconcealed admiration of her was the guiding motive
of Lady Lydiard's inquiries. If she had told the truth, Mr. Troy
would have unquestionably returned to the drawing-room, with or
without an acceptable excuse for intruding himself. But Isabel
was a woman; and her answer, it is needless to say, was "I don't
know, I'm sure."

In the mean time, the interview between the two ladies began in a
manner which would have astonished Mr. Troy--they were both
silent. For once in her life Lady Lydiard was considering what
she should say, before she said it. Miss Pink, on her side,
naturally waited to hear what object her Ladyship had in
view--waited, until her small reserve of patience gave way. Urged
by irresistible curiosity, she spoke first.

"Have you anything to say to me in private?" she asked.

Lady Lydiard had not got to the end of her reflections. She said
"Yes!" --and she said no more.

"Is it anything relating to my niece?" persisted Miss Pink.

Still immersed in her reflections, Lady Lydiard suddenly rose to
the surface, and spoke her mind, as usual.

"About your niece, ma'am. The other day Mr. Hardyman called at my
house, and saw Isabel."

"Yes," said Miss Pink, politely attentive, but not in the least
interested, so far.

"That's not all ma'am. Mr. Hardyman admires Isabel; he owned it
to me himself in so many words."

Miss Pink listened, with a courteous inclination of her head. She
looked mildly gratified, nothing more. Lady Lydiard proceeded:

"You and I think differently on many matters," she said. "But we
are both agreed, I am sure, in feeling the sincerest interest in
Isabel's welfare. I beg to suggest to you, Miss Pink, that Mr.
Hardyman, as a near neighbor of yours, is a very undesirable
neighbor while Isabel remains in your house."

Saying those words, under a strong conviction of the serious
importance of the subject, Lady Lydiard insensibly recovered the
manner and resumed the language which befitted a lady of her
rank. Miss Pink, noticing the change, set it down to an
expression of pride on the part of her visitor which, in
referring to Isabel, assailed indirectly the social position of
Isabel's aunt.

"I fail entirely to understand what your Ladyship means," she
said coldly.

Lady Lydiard, on her side, looked in undisguised amazement at
Miss Pink.

"Haven't I told you already that Mr. Hardyman admires your
niece?" she asked.

"Naturally," said Miss Pink. "Isabel inherits her lamented
mother's personal advantages. If Mr. Hardyman admires her, Mr.
Hardyman shows his good taste."

Lady Lydiard's eyes opened wider and wider in wonder. "My good
lady!" she exclaimed, "is it possible you don't know that when a
man admires a women he doesn't stop there? He falls in love with
her (as the saying is) next."

"So I have heard," said Miss Pink.

"So you have _heard?_" repeated Lady Lydiard. "If Mr. Hardyman
finds his way to Isabel I can tell you what you will _see_. Catch
the two together, ma'am--and you will see Mr. Hardyman making
love to your niece."

"Under due restrictions, Lady Lydiard, and with my permission
first obtained, of course, I see no objection to Mr. Hardyman
paying his addresses to Isabel."

"The woman is mad!" cried Lady Lydiard. "Do you actually suppose,
Miss Pink, that Alfred Hardyman could, by any earthly
possibility, marry your niece!"

Not even Miss Pink's politeness could submit to such a question
as this. She rose indignantly from her chair. "As you aware, Lady
Lydiard, that the doubt you have just expressed is an insult to
my niece, and a insult to Me?"

"Are _you_ aware of who Mr. Hardyman really is?" retorted her
Ladyship. "Or do you judge of his position by the vocation in
life which he has perversely chosen to adopt? I can tell you, if
you do, that Alfred Hardyman is the younger son of one of the
 oldest barons in the English Peerage, and that his mother is
related by marriage to the Royal family of Wurtemberg."

Miss Pink received the full shock of this information without
receding from her position by a hair-breadth.

"An English gentlewoman offers a fit alliance to any man living
who seeks her hand in marriage," said Miss Pink. "Isabel's mother
(you may not be aware of it) was the daughter of an English
clergyman--"

"And Isabel's father was a chemist in a country town," added Lady
Lydiard.

"Isabel's father," rejoined Miss Pink, "was attached in a most
responsible capacity to the useful and honorable profession of
Medicine. Isabel is, in the strictest sense of the word, a young
gentlewoman. If you contradict that for a single instant, Lady
Lydiard, you will oblige me to leave the room."

Those last words produced a result which Miss Pink had not
anticipated--they roused Lady Lydiard to assert herself. As usual
in such cases, she rose superior to her own eccentricity.
Confronting Miss Pink, she now spoke and looked with the gracious
courtesy and the unpresuming self-confidence of the order to
which she belonged.

"For Isabel's own sake, and for the quieting of my conscience,"
she answered, "I will say one word more, Miss Pink, before I
relieve you of my presence. Considering my age and my
opportunities, I may claim to know quite as much as you do of the
laws and customs which regulate society in our time. Without
contesting your niece's social position--and without the
slightest intention of insulting you--I repeat that the rank
which Mr. Hardyman inherits makes it simply impossible for him
even to think of marrying Isabel. You will do well not to give
him any opportunities of meeting with her alone. And you will do
better still (seeing that he is so near a neighbor of yours) if
you permit Isabel to return to my protection, for a time at
least. I will wait to hear from you when you have thought the
matter over at your leisure. In the mean time, if I have
inadvertently offended you, I ask your pardon--and I wish you
good-evening."

She bowed, and walked to the door. Miss Pink, as resolute as ever
in maintaining her pretensions, made an effort to match the great
lady on her own ground.

"Before you go, Lady Lydiard, I beg to apologize if I have spoken
too warmly on my side," she said. "Permit me to send for your
carriage."

"Thank you, Miss Pink. My carriage is only at the village inn. I
shall enjoy a little walk in the cool evening air. Mr. Troy, I
have no doubt, will give me his arm." She bowed once more, and
quietly left the room.

Reaching the little back garden of the villa, through an open
door at the further end of the hall, Lady Lydiard found Tommie
rolling luxuriously on Miss Pink's flower-beds, and Isabel and
Mr. Troy in close consultation on the gravel walk.

She spoke to the lawyer first.

"They are baiting the horses at the inn," she said. "I want your
arm, Mr. Troy, as far as the village--and, in return, I will take
you back to London with me. I have to ask your advice about one
or two little matters, and this is a good opportunity."

"With the greatest pleasure, Lady Lydiard. I suppose I must say
good-by to Miss Pink?"

"A word of advice to you, Mr. Troy. Take care how you ruffle Miss
Pink's sense of her own importance. Another word for your private
ear. Miss Pink is a fool."

On the lawyer's withdrawal, Lady Lydiard put her arm fondly round
Isabel's waist. "What were you and Mr. Troy so busy in talking
about?" she asked.

"We were talking, my Lady, about tracing the person who stole the
money," Isabel answered, rather sadly. "It seems a far more
difficult matter than I supposed it to be. I try not to lose
patience and hope--but it is a little hard to feel that
appearances are against me, and to wait day after day in vain for
the discovery that is to set me right."

"You are a dear good child," said Lady Lydiard; "and you are more
precious to me than ever. Don't despair, Isabel. With Mr. Troy's
means of inquiring, and with my means of paying, the discovery of
the thief cannot be much longer delayed. If you don't return to
me soon, I shall come back and see you again. Your aunt hates the
sight of me--but I don't care two straws for that," remarked Lady
Lydiard, showing the undignified side of her character once more.
"Listen to me, Isabel! I have no wish to lower your aunt in your
estimation, but I feel far more confidence in your good sense
than in hers. Mr. Hardyman's business has taken him to France for
the present. It is at least possible that you may meet with him
on his return. If you do, keep him at a distance, my
dear--politely, of course. There! there! you needn't turn red; I
am not blaming you; I am only giving you a little good advice. In
your position you cannot possibly be too careful. Here is Mr.
Troy! You must come to the gate with us, Isabel, or we shall
never get Tommie away from you; I am only his second favorite;
you have the first place in his affections. God bless and prosper
you, my child!--I wish to heaven you were going back to London
with me! Well, Mr. Troy, how have you done with Miss Pink? Have
you offended that terrible 'gentlewoman' (hateful word!); or has
it been all the other way, and has she given you a kiss at
parting?"

Mr. Troy smiled mysteriously, and changed the subject. His brief
parting interview with the lady of the house was not of a nature
to be rashly related. Miss Pink had not only positively assured
him that her visitor was the most ill-bred woman she had ever met
with, but had further accused Lady Lydiard of shaking her
confidence in the aristocracy of her native country. "For the
first time in my life," said Miss Pink, "I feel that something is
to be said for the Republican point of view; and I am not
indisposed to admit that the constitution of the United States
_has_ its advantages!"


CHAPTER XII.

THE conference between Lady Lydiard and Mr. Troy, on the way back
to London, led to some practical results.

Hearing from her legal adviser that the inquiry after the missing
money was for a moment at a standstill, Lady Lydiard made one of
those bold suggestions with which she was accustomed to startle
her friends in cases of emergency. She had heard favorable
reports of the extraordinary ingenuity of the French police; and
she now proposed sending to Paris for assistance, after first
consulting her nephew, Mr. Felix Sweetsir. "Felix knows Paris as
well as he knows London," she remarked. "He is an idle man, and
it is quite likely that he will relieve us of all trouble by
taking the matter into his own hands. In any case, he is sure to
know who are the right people to address in our present
necessity. What do you say?"

Mr. Troy, in reply, expressed his doubts as to the wisdom of
employing foreigners in a delicate investigation which required
an accurate knowledge of English customs and English character.
Waiving this objection, he approved of the idea of consulting her
Ladyship's nephew. "Mr. Sweetsir is a man of the world," he said.
"In putting the case before him, we are sure to have it presented
to us from a new point of view." Acting on this favorable
expression of opinion, Lady Lydiard wrote to her nephew. On the
day after the visit to Miss Pink, the proposed council of three
was held at Lady Lydiard's house.

Felix, never punctual at keeping an appointment, was even later
than usual on this occasion. He made his apologies with his hand
pressed upon his forehead, and his voice expressive of the
languor and discouragement of a suffering man.

"The beastly English climate is telling on my nerves," said Mr.
Sweetsir--"the horrid weight of the atmosphere, after the
exhilarating air of Paris; the intolerable dirt and dullness of
London, you know. I was in bed, my dear aunt, when I received
your letter. You may imagine the completely demoralised?? state I
was in, when I tell you of the effect which the news of the
robbery produced on me. I fell back on my pillow, as if I had
been shot. Your Ladyship should really be a little more careful
in communicating these disagreeable surprises to a
sensitively-organised man. Never mind--my valet is a perfect
treasure; he brought me some drops of ether on a lump of sugar. I
said, 'Alfred' (his name is Alfred), 'put me into my clothes!'
Alfred put me in. I assure you it reminded me of my young days,
when I was put into my first pair of trousers. Has Alfred
forgotten anything? Have I got my braces on? Have I come out in
my shirt-sleeves? Well, dear aunt;--well, Mr. Troy!--what can I
say? What can I do?"

Lady Lydiard, entirely without sympathy for nervous suffering,
nodded to the lawyer. "You tell him," she said.

"I believe I speak for her Ladyship," Mr. Troy began, "when I say
that we should like to hear, in the first place, how the whole
case strikes you, Mr. Sweetsir?"

"Tell it me all over again," said Felix.

Patient Mr. Troy told it all over again--and waited for the
result.

"Well?" said Felix.

"Well?" said Mr. Troy. "Where does the suspicion of robbery rest
in your opinion? You look at the theft of the bank-note with a
fresh eye."

"You mentioned a clergyman just now," said Felix. "The man, you
know, to whom the money was sent. What was his name?"

"The Reverend Samuel Bradstock."

"You want me to name the person whom I suspect?"

"Yes, if you please," said Mr. Troy.

"I suspect the Reverend Samuel Bradstock," said Felix.

"If you have come here to make stupid jokes," interposed Lady
Lydiard, "you had better go back to your bed again. We want a
serious opinion."

"You _have_ a serious opinion," Felix coolly rejoined. "I never
was more in earnest in my life. Your Ladyship is not aware of the
first principle to be adopted in cases of suspicion. One proceeds
on what I will call the exhaustive system of reasoning. Thus:
Does suspicion point to the honest servants downstairs? No. To
your Ladyship's adopted daughter? Appearances are against the
poor girl; but you know her better than to trust to appearances.
Are you suspicious of Moody? No. Of Hardyman--who was in the
house at the time? Ridiculous! But I was in the house at the
time, too. Do you suspect Me? Just so! That idea is ridiculous,
too. Now let us sum up. Servants, adopted daughter, Moody,
Hardyman, Sweetsir--all beyond suspicion. Who is left? The
Reverend Samuel Bradstock."

This ingenious exposition of "the exhaustive system of
reasoning," failed to produce any effect on Lady Lydiard. "You
are wasting our time," she said sharply. "You know as well as I
do that you are talking nonsense."

"I don't," said Felix. "Taking the gentlemanly professions all
round, I know of no men who are so eager to get money, and who
have so few scruples about how they get it, as the parsons. Where
is there a man in any other profession who perpetually worries
you for money?--who holds the bag under your nose for money?--who
sends his clerk round from door to door to beg a few shillings of
you, and calls it an 'Easter offering'? The parson does all this.
Bradstock is a parson. I put it logically. Bowl me over, if you
can."

Mr. Troy attempted to "bowl him over," nevertheless. Lady Lydiard
wisely interposed.

"When a man persists in talking nonsense," she said, "silence is
the best answer; anything else only encourages him." She turned
to Felix. "I have a question to ask you," she went on. "You will
either give me a serious reply, or wish me good-morning." With
this brief preface, she made her inquiry as to the wisdom and
possibility of engaging the services of the French police.

Felix took exactly the view of the matter which had been already
expressed by Mr. Troy. "Superior in intelligence," he said, "but
not superior in courage, to the English police. Capable of
performing wonders on their own ground and among their own
people. But, my dear aunt, the two most dissimilar nations on the
face of the earth are the English and the French. The French
police may speak our language--but they are incapable of
understanding our national character and our national manners.
Set them to work on a private inquiry in the city of Pekin--and
they would get on in time with the Chinese people. Set them to
work in the city of London--and the English people would remain,
from first to last, the same impenetrable mystery to them. In my
belief the London Sunday would be enough of itself to drive them
back to Paris in despair. No balls, no concerts, no theaters, not
even a museum or a picture-gallery open; every shop shut up but
the gin-shop; and nothing moving but the church bells and the men
who sell the penny ices. Hundreds of Frenchmen come to see me on
their first arrival in England. Every man of them rushes back to
Paris on the second Saturday of his visit, rather than confront
the horrors of a second Sunday in London! However, you can try it
if you like. Send me a written abstract of the case, and I will
forward it to one of the official people in the Rue Jerusalem,
who will do anything he can to oblige me. Of course," said Felix,
turning to Mr. Troy, "some of you have got the number of the lost
bank-note? If the thief has tried to pass it in Paris, my man may
be of some use to you."

"Three of us have got the number of the note," answered Mr. Troy;
"Miss Isabel Miller, Mr. Moody, and myself."

"Very good," said Felix. "Send me the number, with the abstract
of the case. Is there anything else I can do towards recovering
the money?" he asked, turning to his aunt. "There is one lucky
circumstance in connection with this loss--isn't there? It has
fallen on a person who is rich enough to take it easy. Good
heavens! suppose it had been _my_ loss!"

"It has fallen doubly on me," said Lady Lydiard; "and I am
certainly not rich enough to take it _that_ easy. The money was
destined to a charitable purpose; and I have felt it my duty to
pay it again."

Felix rose and approached his aunt's chair with faltering steps,
as became a suffering man. He took Lady Lydiard's hand and kissed
it with enthusiastic admiration.

"You excellent creature!" he said. "You may not think it, but you
reconcile me to human nature. How generous! how noble! I think
I'll go to bed again, Mr. Troy, if you really don't want any more
of me. My head feels giddy and my legs tremble under me. It
doesn't matter; I shall feel easier when Alfred has taken me out
of my clothes again. God bless you, my dear aunt! I never felt so
proud of being related to you as I do to-day. Good-morning Mr.
Troy! Don't forget the abstract of the case; and don't trouble
yourself to see me to the door. I dare say I shan't tumble
downstairs; and, if I do, there's the porter in the hall to pick
me up again. Enviable porter! as fat as butter and as idle as a
pig! _Au revoir! au revoir!_" He kissed his hand, and drifted
feebly out of the room. Sweetsir one might say, in a state of
eclipse; but still the serviceable Sweetsir, who was never
consulted in vain by the fortunate people privileged to call him
friend!

"Is he really ill, do you think?" Mr. Troy asked.

"My nephew has turned fifty," Lady Lydiard answered, "and he
persists in living as if he was a young man. Every now and then
Nature says to him, 'Felix, you are old!' And Felix goes to bed,
and says it's his nerves."

"I suppose he is to be trusted to keep his word about writing to
Paris?" pursued the lawyer.

"Oh, yes! He may delay doing it but he will do it. In spite of
his lackadaisical manner, he has moments of energy that would
surprise you. Talking of surprises, I have something to tell you
about Moody. Within the last day or two there has been a marked
change in him--a change for the worse."

"You astonish me, Lady Lydiard! In what way has Moody
deteriorated?"

"You shall hear. Yesterday was Friday. You took him out with you,
on business, early in the morning."

Mr. Troy bowed, and said nothing. He had not thought it desirable
to mention the interview at which Old Sharon had cheated him of
his guinea.

"In the course of the afternoon," pursued Lady Lydiard, "I
happened to want him, and I was informed that Moody had gone out
again. Where had he gone? Nobody knew. Had he left word when he
would be back? He had left no message of any sort. Of course, he
is not in the position of an ordinary servant. I don't expect him
to ask permission to go out. But I do expect him to leave word
downstairs of the time at which he is likely to return. When he
did
 come back, after an absence of some hours, I naturally asked for
an explanation. Would you believe it? he simply informed me that
he had been away on business of his own; expressed no regret, and
offered no explanation--in short, spoke as if he was an
independent gentleman. You may not think it, but I kept my
temper. I merely remarked that I hoped it would not happen again.
He made me a bow, and he said, 'My business is not completed yet,
my Lady. I cannot guarantee that it may not call me away again at
a moment's notice.' What do you think of that? Nine people out of
ten would have given him warning to leave their service. I begin
to think I am a wonderful woman--I only pointed to the door. One
does hear sometimes of men's brains softening in the most
unexpected manner. I have my suspicions of Moody's brains, I can
tell you."

Mr. Troy's suspicions took a different direction: they pointed
along the line of streets which led to Old Sharon's lodgings.
Discreetly silent as to the turn which his thoughts had taken, he
merely expressed himself as feeling too much surprised to offer
any opinion at all.

"Wait a little," said Lady Lydiard, "I haven't done surprising
you yet. You have been a boy here in a page's livery, I think?
Well, he is a good boy; and he has gone home for a week's holiday
with his friends. The proper person to supply his place with the
boots and shoes and other small employments, is of course the
youngest footman, a lad only a few years older than himself. What
do you think Moody does? Engages a stranger, with the house full
of idle men-servants already, to fill the page's place. At
intervals this morning I heard them wonderfully merry in the
servants hall--_so_ merry that the noise and laughter found its
way upstairs to the breakfast-room. I like my servants to be in
good spirits; but it certainly did strike me that they were
getting beyond reasonable limits. I questioned my maid, and was
informed that the noise was all due to the jokes of the strangest
old man that ever was seen. In other words, to the person whom my
steward had taken it on himself to engage in the page's absence.
I spoke to Moody on the subject. He answered in an odd, confused
way, that he had exercised his discretion to the best of his
judgment and that (if I wished it), he would tell the old man to
keep his good spirits under better control. I asked him how he
came to hear of the man. He only answered, 'By accident, my
Lady'--and not one more word could I get out of him, good or bad.
Moody engages the servants, as you know; but on every other
occasion he has invariably consulted me before an engagement was
settled. I really don't feel at all sure about this person who
has been so strangely introduced into the house--he may be a
drunkard or a thief. I wish you would speak to Moody yourself,
Mr. Troy. Do you mind ringing the bell?"

Mr. Troy rose, as a matter of course, and rang the bell.

He was by this time, it is needless to say, convinced that Moody
had not only gone back to consult Old Sharon on his own
responsibility, but worse still, had taken the unwarrantable
liberty of introducing him, as a spy, into the house. To
communicate this explanation to Lady Lydiard would, in her
present humor, be simply to produce the dismissal of the steward
from her service. The only other alternative was to ask leave to
interrogate Moody privately, and, after duly reproving him, to
insist on the departure of Old Sharon as the one condition on
which Mr. Troy would consent to keep Lady Lydiard in ignorance of
the truth.

"I think I shall manage better with Moody, if your Ladyship will
permit me to see him in private," the lawyer said. "Shall I go
downstairs and speak with him in his own room?"

"Why should you trouble yourself to do that?" said her Ladyship.
"See him here; and I will go into the boudoir."

As she made that reply, the footman appeared at the drawing-room
door.

"Send Moody here," said Lady Lydiard.

The footman's answer, delivered at that moment, assumed an
importance which was not expressed in the footman's words. "My
Lady," he said, "Mr. Moody has gone out."


CHAPTER XIII.

WHILE the strange proceedings of the steward were the subject of
conversation between Lady Lydiard and Mr. Troy, Moody was alone
in his room, occupied in writing to Isabel. Being unwilling that
any eyes but his own should see the address, he had himself
posted his letter; the time that he had chosen for leaving the
house proving, unfortunately, to be also the time proposed by her
Ladyship for his interview with the lawyer. In ten minutes after
the footman had reported his absence, Moody returned. It was then
too late to present himself in the drawing-room. In the interval,
Mr. Troy had taken his leave, and Moody's position had dropped a
degree lower in Lady Lydiard's estimation.

Isabel received her letter by the next morning's post. If any
justification of Mr. Troy's suspicions had been needed, the terms
in which Moody wrote would have amply supplied it.


"DEAR ISABEL (I hope I may call you 'Isabel' without offending
you, in your present trouble?)--I have a proposal to make, which,
whether you accept it or not, I beg you will keep a secret from
every living creature but ourselves. You will understand my
request, when I add that these lines relate to the matter of
tracing the stolen bank-note.

"I have been privately in communication with a person in London,
who is, as I believe, the one person competent to help us in
gaining our end. He has already made many inquiries in private.
With some of them I am acquainted; the rest he has thus far kept
to himself. The person to whom I allude, particularly wishes to
have half an hour's conversation with you in my presence. I am
bound to warn you that he is a very strange and very ugly old
man; and I can only hope that you will look over his personal
appearance in consideration of what he is likely to do for your
future advantage.

"Can you conveniently meet us, at the further end of the row of
villas in which your aunt lives, the day after to-morrow, at four
o'clock? Let me have a line to say if you will keep the
appointment, and if the hour named will suit you. And believe me
your devoted friend and servant,

                                            ROBERT MOODY."


The lawyer's warning to her to be careful how she yielded too
readily to any proposal of Moody's recurred to Isabel's mind
while she read those lines. Being pledged to secrecy, she could
not consult Mr. Troy--she was left to decide for herself.

No obstacle stood in the way of her free choice of alternatives.
After their early dinner at three o'clock, Miss Pink habitually
retired to her own room "to meditate," as she expressed it. Her
"meditations" inevitably ended in a sound sleep of some hours;
and during that interval Isabel was at liberty to do as she
pleased. After considerable hesitation, her implicit belief in
Moody's truth and devotion, assisted by a strong feeling of
curiosity to see the companion with whom the steward had
associated himself, decided Isabel on consenting to keep the
appointment.

Taking up her position beyond the houses, on the day and at the
hour mentioned by Moody, she believed herself to be fully
prepared for the most unfavorable impression which the most
disagreeable of all possible strangers could produce.

But the first appearance of Old Sharon--as dirty as ever, clothed
in a long, frowzy, gray overcoat, with his pug-dog at his heels,
and his smoke-blackened pipe in his mouth, with a tan white hat
on his head, which looked as if it had been picked up in a
gutter, a hideous leer in his eyes, and a jaunty trip in his
walk--took her so completely by surprise that she could only
return Moody's friendly greeting by silently pressing his hand.
As for Moody's companion, to look at him for a second time was
more than she had resolution to do. She kept her eyes fixed on
the pug-dog, and with good reason; as far as appearances went, he
was indisputably the nobler animal of the two.

Under the circumstances, the interview threatened to begin in a
very embarrassing manner. Moody, disheartened by Isabel's
silence, made no attempt to set the conversa tion going; he
looked as if he meditated a hasty retreat to the railway station
which he had just left. Fortunately, he had at his side the right
man (for once) in the right place. Old Sharon's effrontery was
equal to any emergency.

"I am not a nice-looking old man, my dear, am I?" he said,
leering at Isabel with cunning, half-closed eyes. "Bless your
heart! you'll soon get used to me! You see, I am the sort of
color, as they say at the linen-drapers," that doesn't wash well.
It's all through love; upon my life it is! Early in the present
century I had my young affections blighted; and I've neglected
myself ever since. Disappointment takes different forms, miss, in
different men. I don't think I have had heart enough to brush my
hair for the last fifty years. She was a magnificent woman, Mr.
Moody, and she dropped me like a hot potato. Dreadful! dreadful!
Let us pursue this painful subject no further. Ha! here's a
pretty country! Here's a nice blue sky! I admire the country,
miss; I see so little of it, you know. Have you any objection to
walk along into the fields? The fields, my dear, bring out all
the poetry of my nature. Where's the dog? Here, Puggy! Puggy!
hunt about, my man, and find some dog-grass. Does his inside
good, you know, after a meat diet in London. Lord! how I feel my
spirits rising in this fine air! Does my complexion look any
brighter, miss? Will you run a race with me, Mr. Moody, or will
you oblige me with a back at leap-frog? I'm not mad, my dear
young lady; I'm only merry. I live, you see, in the London stink;
and the smell of the hedges and the wild flowers is too much for
me at first. It gets into my head, it does. I'm drunk! As I live
by bread, I'm drunk on fresh air! Oh! what a jolly day! Oh! how
young and innocent I do feel!" Here his innocence got the better
of him, and he began to sing, "I wish I were a little fly, in my
love's bosom for to lie!" "Hullo! here we are on the nice soft
grass! and, oh, my gracious! there's a bank running down into a
hollow! I can't stand that, you know. Mr. Moody, hold my hat, and
take the greatest care of it. Here goes for a roll down the
bank!"

He handed his horrible hat to the astonished Moody, laid himself
flat on the top of the bank, and deliberately rolled down it,
exactly as he might have done when he was a boy. The tails of his
long gray coat flew madly in the wind: the dog pursued him,
jumping over him, and barking with delight; he shouted and
screamed in answer to the dog as he rolled over and over faster
and faster; and, when he got up, on the level ground, and called
out cheerfully to his companions standing above him, "I say, you
two, I feel twenty years younger already!"--human gravity could
hold out no longer. The sad and silent Moody smiled, and Isabel
burst into fits of laughter.

"There," he said "didn't I tell you you would get used to me,
Miss? There's a deal of life left in the old man yet--isn't
there? Shy me down my hat, Mr. Moody. And now we'll get to
business!" He turned round to the dog still barking at his heels.
"Business, Puggy!" he called out sharply, and Puggy instantly
shut up his mouth, and said no more.

"Well, now," Old Sharon resumed when he had joined his friends
and had got his breath again, "let's have a little talk about
yourself, miss. Has Mr. Moody told you who I am, and what I want
with you? Very good. May I offer you my arm? No! You like to be
independent, don't you? All right--I don't object. I am an
amiable old man, I am. About this Lady Lydiard, now? Suppose you
tell me how you first got acquainted with her?"

In some surprise at this question, Isabel told her little story.
Observing Sharon's face while she was speaking, Moody saw that he
was not paying the smallest attention to the narrative. His
sharp, shameless black eyes watched the girl's face absently; his
gross lips curled upwards in a sardonic and self-satisfied smile.
He was evidently setting a trap for her of some kind. Without a
word of warning--while Isabel was in the middle of a
sentence--the trap opened, with the opening of Old Sharon's lips.

"I say," he burst out. "How came _you_ to seal her Ladyship's
letter--eh?"

The question bore no sort of relation, direct or indirect, to
what Isabel happened to be saying at the moment. In the sudden
surprise of hearing it, she started and fixed her eyes in
astonishment on Sharon's face. The old vagabond chuckled to
himself. "Did you see that?" he whispered to Moody. "I beg your
pardon, miss," he went on; "I won't interrupt you again. Lord!
how interesting it is!--ain't it, Mr. Moody? Please to go on,
miss."

But Isabel, though she spoke with perfect sweetness and temper,
declined to go on. "I had better tell you, sir, how I came to
seal her Ladyship's letter," she said. "If I may venture on
giving my opinion, _that_ part of my story seems to be the only
part of it which relates to your business with me to-day."

Without further preface she described the circumstances which had
led to her assuming the perilous responsibility of sealing the
letter. Old Sharon's wandering attention began to wander again:
he was evidently occupied in setting another trap. For the second
time he interrupted Isabel in the middle of a sentence. Suddenly
stopping short, he pointed to some sheep, at the further end of
the field through which they happened to be passing at the
moment.

"There's a pretty sight," he said. "There are the innocent sheep
a-feeding--all following each other as usual. And there's the sly
dog waiting behind the gate till the sheep wants his services.
Reminds me of Old Sharon and the public!" He chuckled over the
discovery of the remarkable similarity between the sheep-dog and
himself, and the sheep and the public--and then burst upon Isabel
with a second question. "I say! didn't you look at the letter
before you sealed it?"

"Certainly not!" Isabel answered.

"Not even at the address?"

"No!"

"Thinking of something else--eh?"

"Very likely," said Isabel.

"Was it your new bonnet, my dear?"

Isabel laughed. "Women are not always thinking of their new
bonnets," she answered.

Old Sharon, to all appearance, dropped the subject there. He
lifted his lean brown forefinger and pointed again--this time to
a house at a short distance from them. "That's a farmhouse,
surely?" he said. "I'm thirsty after my roll down the hill. Do
you think, Miss, they would give me a drink of milk?"

"I am sure they would," said Isabel. "I know the people. Shall I
go and ask them?"

"Thank you, my dear. One word more before you go. About the
sealing of that letter? What _could_ you have been thinking of
while you were doing it?" He looked hard at her, and took her
suddenly by the arm. "Was it your sweetheart?" he asked, in a
whisper.

The question instantly reminded Isabel that she had been thinking
of Hardyman while she sealed the letter. She blushed as the
remembrance crossed her mind. Robert, noticing the embarrassment,
spoke sharply to Old Sharon. "You have no right to put such a
question to a young lady," he said. "Be a little more careful for
the future."

"There! there! don't be hard on me," pleaded the old rogue. "An
ugly old man like me may make his innocent little joke--eh, miss?
I'm sure you're too sweet-tempered to be angry when I meant no
offense.. Show me that you bear no malice. Go, like a forgiving
young angel, and ask for the milk."

Nobody appealed to Isabel's sweetness of temper in vain. "I will
do it with pleasure," she said--and hastened away to the
farmhouse.


CHAPTER XIV.

THE instant Isabel was out of hearing, Old Sharon slapped Moody
on the shoulder to rouse his attention. "I've got her out of the
way," he said, "now listen to me. My business with the young
angel is done--I may go back to London."

Moody looked at him with astonishment.

"Lord! how little you know of thieves!" exclaimed Old Sharon.
"Why, man alive, I have tried her with two plain tests! If you
wanted a proof of her innocence, there it was, as plain as the
nose in your face. Did you hear me ask her how she came to seal
the letter--just when her mind was running on something else?"

"I heard you," said Moody.

"Did you see how she started and stared  at me?"

"I di d."

"Well, I can tell you this--if she _had_ stolen the money she
would neither have started nor stared. She would have had her
answer ready beforehand in her own mind, in case of accidents.
There's only one thing in my experience that you can never do
with a thief, when a thief happens to be a woman--you can never
take her by surprise. Put that remark by in your mind; one day
you may find a use for remembering it. Did you see her blush, and
look quite hurt in her feelings, pretty dear, when I asked about
her sweetheart? Do you think a thief, in her place, would have
shown such a face as that? Not she! The thief would have been
relieved. The thief would have said to herself, 'All right! the
more the old fool talks about sweethearts the further he is from
tracing the robbery to Me!' Yes! yes! the ground's cleared now,
Master Moody. I've reckoned up the servants; I've questioned Miss
Isabel; I've made my inquiries in all the other quarters that may
be useful to us--and what's the result? The advice I gave, when
you and the lawyer first came to me--I hate that fellow!--remains
as sound and good advice as ever. I have got the thief in my
mind," said Old Sharon, closing his cunning eyes and then opening
them again, "as plain as I've got you in my eye at this minute.
No more of that now," he went on, looking round sharply at the
path that led to the farmhouse. "I've something particular to say
to you--and there's barely time to say it before that nice girl
comes back. Look here! Do you happen to be acquainted with
Mr.-Honorable-Hardyman's valet?"

Moody's eyes rested on Old Sharon with a searching and doubtful
look.

"Mr. Hardyman's valet?" he repeated. "I wasn't prepared to hear
Mr. Hardyman's name."

Old Sharon looked at Moody, in his turn, with a flash of sardonic
triumph.

"Oho!" he said. "Has my good boy learned his lesson? Do you see
the thief through my spectacles, already?"

"I began to see him," Moody answered, "when you gave us the
guinea opinion at your lodgings."

"Will you whisper his name?" asked Old Sharon.

"Not yet. I distrust my own judgment. I wait till time proves
that you are right."

Old Sharon knitted his shaggy brows and shook his head. "If you
had only a little more dash and go in you," he said, "you would
be a clever fellow. As it is--!" He finished the sentence by
snapping his fingers with a grin of contempt. "Let's get to
business. Are you going back by the next train along with me? or
are you going to stop with the young lady?"

"I will follow you by a later train," Moody answered.

"Then I must give you my instructions at once," Sharon continued.
"You get better acquainted with Hardyman's valet. Lend him money
if he wants it--stick at nothing to make a bosom friend of him. I
can't do that part of it; my appearance would be against me.
_You_ are the man--you are respectable from the top of your hat
to the tips of your boots; nobody would suspect You. Don't make
objections! Can you fix the valet? Or can't you?"

"I can try," said Moody. "And what then?"

Old Sharon put his gross lips disagreeably close to Moody's ear.

"Your friend the valet can tell you who his master's bankers
are," he said; "and he can supply you with a specimen of his
master's handwriting."

Moody drew back, as suddenly as if his vagabond companion had put
a knife to his throat. "You old villain!" he said. "Are you
tempting me to forgery?"

"You infernal fool!" retorted Old Sharon. "_Will_ you hold that
long tongue of yours, and hear what I have to say. You go to
Hardyman's bankers, with a note in Hardyman's handwriting
(exactly imitated by me) to this effect:--'Mr. H. presents his
compliments to Messrs. So-and-So, and is not quite certain
whether a payment of five hundred pounds has been made within the
last week to his account. He will be much obliged if Messrs.
So-and-So will inform him by a line in reply, whether there is
such an entry to his credit in their books, and by whom the
payment has been made.' You wait for the bankers' answer, and
bring it to me. It's just possible that the name you're afraid to
whisper may appear in the letter. If it does, we've caught our
man. Is _that_ forgery, Mr. Muddlehead Moody? I'll tell you
what--if I had lived to be your age, and knew no more of the
world than you do, I'd go and hang myself. Steady! here's our
charming friend with the milk. Remember your instructions, and
don't lose heart if my notion of the payment to the bankers comes
to nothing. I know what to do next, in that case--and, what's
more, I'll take all the risk and trouble on my own shoulders. Oh,
Lord! I'm afraid I shall be obliged to drink the milk, now it's
come!"

With this apprehension in his mind, he advanced to relieve Isabel
of the jug that she carried.

"Here's a treat!" he burst out, with an affectation of joy, which
was completely belied by the expression of his dirty face.
"Here's a kind and dear young lady, to help an old man to a drink
with her own pretty hands." He paused, and looked at the milk
very much as he might have looked at a dose of physic. "Will
anyone take a drink first?" he asked, offering the jug piteously
to Isabel and Moody. "You see, I'm not wed to genuine milk; I'm
used to chalk and water. I don't know what effect the
unadulterated cow might have on my poor old inside." He tasted
the milk with the greatest caution. "Upon my soul, this is too
rich for me! The unadulterated cow is a deal too strong to be
drunk alone. If you'll allow me I'll qualify it with a drop of
gin. Here, Puggy, Puggy!" He set the milk down before the dog;
and, taking a flask out of his pocket, emptied it at a draught.
"That's something like!" he said, smacking his lips with an air
of infinite relief. "So sorry, Miss, to have given you all your
trouble for nothing; it's my ignorance that's to blame, not me. I
couldn't know I was unworthy of genuine milk till I tried--could
l? And do you know," he proceeded, with his eyes directed slyly
on the way back to the station, "I begin to think I'm not worthy
of the fresh air, either. A kind of longing seems to come over me
for the London stink. I'm home-sick already for the soot of my
happy childhood and my own dear native mud. The air here is too
thin for me, and the sky's too clean; and--oh, Lord!--when you're
wed to the roar of the traffic--the 'busses and the cabs and what
not--the silence in these parts is downright awful. I'll wish you
good evening, miss; and get back to London."

Isabel turned to Moody with disappointment plainly expressed in
her face and manner.

"Is that all he has to say?" she asked. "You told me he could
help us. You led me to suppose he could find the guilty person."

Sharon heard her. "I could name the guilty person," he answered,
"as easily, miss, as I could name you."

"Why don't you do it then?" Isabel inquired, not very patiently

"Because the time's not ripe for it yet, miss--that's one reason.
Because, if I mentioned the thief's name, as things are now, you,
Miss Isabel, would think me mad; and you would tell Mr. Moody I
had cheated him out of his money--that's another reason. The
matter's in train, if you will only wait a little longer."

"So you say," Isabel rejoined. "If you really could name the
thief, I believe you would do it now."

She turned away with a frown on her pretty face. Old Sharon
followed her. Even his coarse sensibilities appeared to feel the
irresistible ascendancy of beauty and youth.

"I say!" he began, "we must part friends, you know--or I shall
break my heart over it. They have got milk at the farmhouse. Do
you think they have got pen, ink, and paper too?"

Isabel answered, without turning to look at him, "Of course they
have!"

"And a bit of sealing-wax?"

"I daresay!"

Old Sharon laid his dirty claws on her shoulder and forced her to
face him as the best means of shaking them off.

"Come along!" he said. "I am going to pacify you with some
information in writing."

"Why should you write it?" Isabel asked suspiciously.

"Because I mean to make my own conditions, my dear, before I let
you into the secret."

In ten minutes more they were all three in the farmhouse parlor.
Nobody but the farmer's wife was at home. The good  woman trembled
from head to foot at the sight of Old Sharon. In all her harmless
life she had never yet seen humanity under the aspect in which it
was now presented to her. "Mercy preserve us, Miss!" she
whispered to Isabel, "how come you to be in such company as
_that?_" Instructed by Isabel, she produced the necessary
materials for writing and sealing--and, that done, she shrank
away to the door. "Please to excuse me, miss," she said with a
last horrified look at her venerable visitor; "I really can't
stand the sight of such a blot of dirt as that in my nice clean
parlor." With those words she disappeared, and was seen no more.

Perfectly indifferent to his reception, Old Sharon wrote,
inclosed what he had written in an envelope; and sealed it (in
the absence of anything better fitted for his purpose) with the
mouthpiece of his pipe.

"Now, miss," he said, "you give me your word of honor"--he
stopped and looked round at Moody with a grin--"and you give me
yours, that you won't either of you break the seal on this
envelope till the expiration of one week from the present day.
There are the conditions, Miss Isabel, on which I'll give you
your information. If you stop to dispute with me, the candle's
alight, and I'll burn it!"

It was useless to contend with him. Isabel and Moody gave him the
promise that he required. He handed the sealed envelope to Isabel
with a low bow. "When the week's out," he said, "you will own I'm
a cleverer fellow than you think me now. Wish you good evening,
Miss. Come along, Puggy! Farewell to the horrid clean country,
and back again to the nice London stink!"

He nodded to Moody--he leered at Isabel--he chuckled to
himself--he left the farmhouse.


CHAPTER XV.

ISABEL looked down at the letter in her hand--considered it in
silence--and turned to Moody. "I feel tempted to open it
already," she said.

"After giving your promise?" Moody gently remonstrated.

Isabel met that objection with a woman's logic.

"Does a promise matter?" she asked, "when one gives it to a
dirty, disreputable, presuming old wretch like Mr. Sharon? It's a
wonder to me that you trust such a creature. _I_ wouldn't!"

"I doubted him just as you do," Moody answered, "when I first saw
him in company with Mr. Troy. But there was something in the
advice he gave us at that first consultation which altered my
opinion of him for the better. I dislike his appearance and his
manners as much as you do--I may even say I felt ashamed of
bringing such a person to see you. And yet I can't think that I
have acted unwisely in employing Mr. Sharon."

Isabel listened absently. She had something more to say, and she
was considering how she should say it. "May I ask you a bold
question?" she began.

"Any question you like."

"Have you--" she hesitated and looked embarrassed. "Have you paid
Mr. Sharon much money?" she resumed, suddenly rallying her
courage. Instead of answering, Moody suggested that it was time
to think of returning to Miss Pink's villa. "Your aunt may be
getting anxious about you." he said.

Isabel led the way out of the farmhouse in silence. She reverted
to Mr. Sharon and the money, however, as they returned by the
path across the fields.

"I am sure you will not be offended with me," she said gently,
"if I own that I am uneasy about the expense. I am allowing you
to use your purse as if it was mine--and I have hardly any
savings of my own."

Moody entreated her not to speak of it. "How can I put my money
to a better use than in serving your interests?" he asked. "My
one object in life is to relieve you of your present anxieties. I
shall be the happiest man living if you only owe a moment's
happiness to my exertions!"

Isabel took his hand, and looked at him with grateful tears in
her eyes.

"How good you are to me, Mr. Moody!" she said. "I wish I could
tell you how deeply I feel your kindness."

"You can do it easily," he answered, with a smile. "Call me
'Robert' --don't call me 'Mr. Moody.' "

She took his arm with a sudden familiarity that charmed him. "If
you had been my brother I should have called you 'Robert,' " she
said; "and no brother could have been more devoted to me than you
are."

He looked eagerly at her bright face turned up to his. "May I
never hope to be something nearer and dearer to you than a
brother?" he asked timidly.

She hung her head and said nothing. Moody's memory recalled
Sharon's coarse reference to her "sweetheart." She had blushed
when he put the question? What had she done when Moody put _his_
question? Her face answered for her--she had turned pale; she was
looking more serious than usual. Ignorant as he was of the ways
of women, his instinct told him that this was a bad sign. Surely
her rising color would have confessed it, if time and gratitude
together were teaching her to love him? He sighed as the
inevitable conclusion forced itself on his mind.

"I hope I have not offended you?" he said sadly.

"Oh, no."

"I wish I had not spoken. Pray don't think that I am serving you
with any selfish motive."

"I don't think that, Robert. I never could think it of _you_."

He was not quite satisfied yet. "Even if you were to marry some
other man," he went on earnestly, "it would make no difference in
what I am trying to do for you. No matter what I might suffer, I
should still go on--for your sake."

"Why do you talk so?" she burst out passionately. "No other man
has such a claim as you to my gratitude and regard. How can you
let such thoughts come to you? I have done nothing in secret. I
have no friends who are not known to you. Be satisfied with that,
Robert--and let us drop the subject."

"Never to take it up again?" he asked, with the infatuated
pertinacity of a man clinging to his last hope.

At other times and under other circumstances, Isabel might have
answered him sharply. She spoke with perfect gentleness now.

"Not for the present," she said. "I don't know my own heart. Give
me time."

His gratitude caught at those words, as the drowning man is said
to catch at the proverbial straw. He lifted her hand, and
suddenly and fondly pressed his lips on it. She showed no
confusion. Was she sorry for him, poor wretch!--and was that all?

They walked on, arm-in-arm, in silence.

Crossing the last field, they entered again on the high road
leading to the row of villas in which Miss Pink lived. The minds
of both were preoccupied. Neither of them noticed a gentleman
approaching on horseback, followed by a mounted groom. He was
advancing slowly, at the walking-pace of his horse, and he only
observed the two foot-passengers when he was close to them.

"Miss Isabel!"

She started, looked up, and discovered--Alfred Hardyman.

He was dressed in a perfectly-made travelling suit of light
brown, with a peaked felt hat of a darker shade of the same
color, which, in a picturesque sense, greatly improved his
personal appearance. His pleasure at discovering Isabel gave the
animation to his features which they wanted on ordinary
occasions. He sat his horse, a superb hunter, easily and
gracefully. His light amber-colored gloves fitted him perfectly.
His obedient servant, on another magnificent horse, waited behind
him. He looked the impersonation of rank and breeding--of wealth
and prosperity. What a contrast, in a woman's eyes, to the shy,
pale, melancholy man, in the ill-fitting black clothes, with the
wandering, uneasy glances, who stood beneath him, and felt, and
showed that he felt, his inferior position keenly! In spite of
herself, the treacherous blush flew over Isabel's face, in
Moody's presence, and with Moody's eyes distrustfully watching
her.

"This is a piece of good fortune that I hardly hoped for," said
Hardyman, his cool, quiet, dreary way of speaking quickened as
usual, in Isabel's presence. "I only got back from France this
morning, and I called on Lady Lydiard in the hope of seeing you.
She was not at home--and you were in the country--and the
servants didn't know the address. I could get nothing out of
them, except that you were on a visit to a relation." He looked
at Moody while he was speaking. "Haven't I seen you before?" he
said, carelessly. "Yes; at Lady Lydiard's. You're her steward,
are you not? How d'ye do?" Moody, with h is eyes on the ground,
answered silently by a bow. Hardyman, perfectly indifferent
whether Lady Lydiard's steward spoke or not, turned on his saddle
and looked admiringly at Isabel. "I begin to think I am a lucky
man at last," he went on with a smile. "I was jogging along to my
farm, and despairing of ever seeing Miss Isabel again--and Miss
Isabel herself meets me at the roadside! I wonder whether you are
as glad to see me as I am to see you? You won't tell me--eh? May
I ask you something else? Are you staying in our neighborhood?"

There was no alternative before Isabel but to answer this last
question. Hardyman had met her out walking, and had no doubt
drawn the inevitable inference--although he was too polite to say
so in plain words.

"Yes, sir," she answered, shyly, "I am staying in this
neighborhood."

"And who is your relation?" Hardyman proceeded, in his easy,
matter-of-course way. "Lady Lydiard told me, when I had the
pleasure of meeting you at her house, that you had an aunt living
in the country. I have a good memory, Miss Isabel, for anything
that I hear about You! It's your aunt, isn't it? Yes? I know
everybody about hew. What is your aunt's name?"

Isabel, still resting her hand on Robert's arm, felt it tremble a
little as Hardyman made this last inquiry. If she had been
speaking to one of her equals she would have known how to dispose
of the question without directly answering it. But what could she
say to the magnificent gentleman on the stately horse? He had
only to send his servant into the village to ask who the young
lady from London was staying with, and the answer, in a dozen
mouths at least, would direct him to her aunt. She cast one
appealing look at Moody and pronounced the distinguished name of
Miss Pink.

"Miss Pink?" Hardyman repeated. "Surely I know Miss Pink?" (He
had not the faintest remembrances of her.) "Where did I meet her
last?" (He ran over in his memory the different local festivals
at which strangers had been introduced to him.) "Was it at the
archery meeting? or at the grammar-school when the prizes were
given? No? It must have been at the flower show, then, surely?"

It _had_ been at the flower show. Isabel had heard it from Miss
Pink fifty times at least, and was obliged to admit it now.

"I am quite ashamed of never having called," Hardyman proceeded.
"The fact is, I have so much to do. I am a bad one at paying
visits. Are you on your way home? Let me follow you and make my
apologies personally to Miss Pink."

Moody looked at Isabel. It was only a momentary glance, but she
perfectly understood it.

"I am afraid, sir, my aunt cannot have the honor of seeing you
to-day," she said.

Hardyman was all compliance. He smiled and patted his horse's
neck. "To-morrow, then," he said. "My compliments, and I will
call in the afternoon. Let me see: Miss Pink lives at--?" He
waited, as if he expected Isabel to assist his treacherous memory
once more. She hesitated again. Hardyman looked round at his
groom. The groom could find out the address, even if he did not
happen to know it already. Besides, there was the little row of
houses visible at the further end of the road. Isabel pointed to
the villas, as a necessary concession to good manners, before the
groom could anticipate her. "My aunt lives there, sir; at the
house called The Lawn."

"Ah! to be sure!" said Hardyman. "I oughtn't to have wanted
reminding; but I have so many things to think of at the farm. And
I am afraid I must be getting old--my memory isn't as good as it
was. I am so glad to have seen you, Miss Isabel. You and your
aunt must come and look at my horses. Do you like horses? Are you
fond of riding? I have a quiet roan mare that is used to carrying
ladies; she would be just the thing for you. Did I beg you to
give my best compliments to your aunt? Yes? How well you are
looking! our air here agrees with you. I hope I haven't kept you
standing too long? I didn't think of it in the pleasure of
meeting you. Good-by, Miss Isabel; good-by, till to-morrow!"

He took off his hat to Isabel, nodded to Moody, and pursued his
way to the farm.

Isabel looked at her companion. His eyes were still on the
ground. Pale, silent, motionless, he waited by her like a dog,
until she gave the signal of walking on again towards the house.

"You are not angry with me for speaking to Mr. Hardyman?" she
asked, anxiously.

He lifted his head it the sound of her voice. "Angry with you, my
dear! why should I be angry?"

"You seem so changed, Robert, since we met Mr. Hardyman. I
couldn't help speaking to him--could I?"

"Certainly not."

They moved on towards the villa. Isabel was still uneasy. There
was something in Moody's silent submission to all that she said
and all that she did which pained and humiliated her. "You're not
jealous?" she said, smiling timidly.

He tried to speak lightly on his side. "I have no time to be
jealous while I have your affairs to look after," he answered.

She pressed his arm tenderly. "Never fear, Robert, that new
friends will make me forget the best and dearest friend who is
now at my side." She paused, and looked up at him with a
compassionate fondness that was very pretty to see. "I can keep
out of the way to-morrow, when Mr. Hardyman calls," she said. "It
is my aunt he is coming to see--not me."

It was generously meant. But while her mind was only occupied
with the present time, Moody's mind was looking into the future.
He was learning the hard lesson of self-sacrifice already. "Do
what you think is right," he said quietly; "don't think of me."

They reached the gate of the villa. He held out his hand to say
good-by.

"Won't you come in?" she asked. "Do come in!"

"Not now, my dear. I must get back to London as soon as I can.
There is some more work to be done for you, and the sooner I do
it the better."

She heard his excuse without heeding it.

"You are not like yourself, Robert," she said. "Why is it? What
are you thinking of?"

He was thinking of the bright blush that overspread her face when
Hardyman first spoke to her; he was thinking of the invitation to
her to see the stud-farm, and to ride the roan mare; he was
thinking of the utterly powerless position in which he stood
towards Isabel and towards the highly-born gentleman who admired
her. But he kept his doubts and fears to himself. "The train
won't wait for me," he said, and held out his hand once more.

She was not only perplexed; she was really distressed. "Don't
take leave of me in that cold way!" she pleaded. Her eyes dropped
before his, and her lips trembled a little. "Give me a kiss,
Robert, at parting." She said those bold words softly and sadly,
out of the depth of her pity for him. He started; his face
brightened suddenly; his sinking hope rose again. In another
moment the change came; in another moment he understood her. As
he touched her cheek with his lips, he turned pale again. "Don't
quite forget me," he said, in low, faltering tones--and left her.

Miss Pink met Isabel in the hall. Refreshed by unbroken repose,
the ex-schoolmistress was in the happiest frame of mind for the
reception of her niece's news.

Informed that Moody had travelled to South Morden to personally
report the progress of the inquiries, Miss Pink highly approved
of him as a substitute for Mr. Troy. "Mr. Moody, as a banker's
son, is a gentleman by birth," she remarked; "he has
condescended, in becoming Lady Lydiard's steward. What I saw of
him, when he came here with you, prepossessed me in his favor. He
has my confidence, Isabel, as well as yours--he is in every
respect a superior person to Mr. Troy. Did you meet any friends,
my dear, when you were out walking?"

The answer to this question produced a species of transformation
in Miss Pink. The rapturous rank-worship of her nation feasted,
so to speak, on Hardyman's message. She looked taller and younger
than usual--she was all smiles and sweetness. "At last, Isabel,
you have seen birth and breeding under their right aspect," she
said. "In the society of Lady Lydiard, you cannot possibly have
formed correct ideas of the English aristocracy. Observe Mr.
Hardyman when he does me the honor to call to-morrow--and you
will see the difference."

"Mr. Hardyman is your visitor, aunt--not mine. I was going to ask
you to let me remain upstairs in my room."

Miss Pink was unaffectedly shocked. "This is what you learn at
Lady Lydiard's!" she observed. "No, Isabel, your absence would be
a breach of good manners--I cannot possibly permit it. You will
be present to receive our distinguished friend with me. And mind
this!" added Miss Pink, in her most impressive manner, "If Mr.
Hardyman should by any chance ask why you have left Lady Lydiard,
not one word about those disgraceful circumstances which connect
you with the loss of the banknote! I should sink into the earth
if the smallest hint of what has really happened should reach Mr.
Hardyman's ears. My child, I stand towards you in the place of
your lamented mother; I have the right to command your silence on
this horrible subject, and I do imperatively command it."

In these words foolish Miss Pink sowed the seed for the harvest
of trouble that was soon to come.


CHAPTER XVI.

PAYING his court to the ex-schoolmistress on the next day,
Hardyman made such excellent use of his opportunities that the
visit to the stud-farm took place on the day after. His own
carriage was placed at the disposal of Isabel and her aunt; and
his own sister was present to confer special distinction on the
reception of Miss Pink.

In a country like England, which annually suspends the sitting of
its Legislature in honor of a horse-race, it is only natural and
proper that the comfort of the horses should be the first object
of consideration at a stud-farm. Nine-tenths of the land at
Hardyman's farm was devoted, in one way or another, to the noble
quadruped with the low forehead and the long nose. Poor humanity
was satisfied with second-rate and third-rate accommodation. The
ornamental grounds, very poorly laid out, were also very limited
in extent--and, as for the dwelling-house, it was literally a
cottage. A parlor and a kitchen, a smoking-room, a bed-room, and
a spare chamber for a friend, all scantily furnished, sufficed
for the modest wants of the owner of the property. If you wished
to feast your eyes on luxury you went to the stables.

The stud-farm being described, the introduction to Hardyman's
sister follows in due course.

The Honorable Lavinia Hardyman was, as all persons in society
know, married rather late in life to General Drumblade. It is
saying a great deal, but it is not saying too much, to describe
Mrs. Drumblade as the most mischievous woman of her age in all
England. Scandal was the breath of her life; to place people in
false positions, to divulge secrets and destroy characters, to
undermine friendships, and aggravate enmities--these were the
sources of enjoyment from which this dangerous woman drew the
inexhaustible fund of good spirits that made her a brilliant
light in the social sphere. She was one of the privileged sinners
of modern society. The worst mischief that she could work was
ascribed to her "exuberant vitality." She had that ready
familiarity of manner which is (in _her_ class) so rarely
discovered to be insolence in disguise. Her power of easy
self-assertion found people ready to accept her on her own terms
wherever she went. She was one of those big, overpowering women,
with blunt manners, voluble tongues, and goggle eyes, who carry
everything before them. The highest society modestly considered
itself in danger of being dull in the absence of Mrs. Drumblade.
Even Hardyman himself--who saw as little of her as possible,
whose frankly straightforward nature recoiled by instinct from
contact with his sister--could think of no fitter person to make
Miss Pink's reception agreeable to her, while he was devoting his
own attentions to her niece. Mrs. Drumblade accepted the position
thus offered with the most amiable readiness. In her own private
mind she placed an interpretation on her brother's motives which
did him the grossest injustice. She believed that Hardyman's
designs on Isabel contemplated the most profligate result. To
assist this purpose, while the girl's nearest relative was
supposed to be taking care of her, was Mrs. Drumblade's idea of
"fun." Her worst enemies admitted that the honorable Lavia had
redeeming qualities, and owned that a keen sense of humor was one
of her merits.

Was Miss Pink a likely person to resist the fascinations of Mrs.
Drumblade? Alas, for the ex-schoolmistress! before she had been
five minutes at the farm, Hardyman's sister had fished for her,
caught her, landed her. Poor Miss Pink!

Mrs. Drumblade could assume a grave dignity of manner when the
occasion called for it. She was grave, she was dignified, when
Hardyman performed the ceremonies of introduction. She would not
say she was charmed to meet Miss Pink--the ordinary slang of
society was not for Miss Pink's ears--she would say she felt this
introduction as a privilege. It was so seldom one met with
persons of trained intellect in society. Mrs. Drumblade was
already informed of Miss Pink's earlier triumphs in the
instruction of youth. Mrs. Drumblade had not been blessed with
children herself; but she had nephews and nieces, and she was
anxious about their education, especially the nieces. What a
sweet, modest girl Miss Isabel was! The fondest wish she could
form for her nieces would be that they should resemble Miss
Isabel when they grew up. The question was, as to the best method
of education. She would own that she had selfish motives in
becoming acquainted with Miss Pink. They were at the farm, no
doubt, to see Alfred's horses. Mrs. Drumblade did not understand
horses; her interest was in the question of education. She might
even confess that she had accepted Alfred's invitation in the
hope of hearing Miss Pink's views. There would be opportunities,
she trusted, for a little instructive conversation on that
subject. It was, perhaps, ridiculous to talk, at her age, of
feeling as if she was Miss Pink's pupil; and yet it exactly
expressed the nature of the aspiration which was then in her
mind.

In these terms, feeling her way with the utmost nicety, Mrs.
Drumblade wound the net of flattery round and round Miss Pink
until her hold on that innocent lady was, in every sense of the
word, secure. Before half the horses had been passed under
review, Hardyman and Isabel were out of sight, and Mrs. Drumblade
and Miss Pink were lost in the intricacies of the stables.
"Excessively stupid of me! We had better go back, and establish
ourselves comfortably in the parlor. When my brother misses us,
he and your charming niece will return to look for us in the
cottage." Under cover of this arrangement the separation became
complete. Miss Pink held forth on education to Mrs. Drumblade in
the parlor; while Hardyman and Isabel were on their way to a
paddock at the farthest limits of the property.

"I am afraid you are getting a little tired," said Hardyman.
"Won't you take my arm?"

Isabel was on her guard: she had not forgotten what Lady Lydiard
had said to her. "No, thank you, Mr. Hardyman; I am a better
walker than you think."

Hardyman continued the conversation in his blunt, resolute way.
"I wonder whether you will believe me," he asked, "if I tell you
that this is one of the happiest days of my life."

"I should think you were always happy," Isabel cautiously
replied, "having such a pretty place to live in as this."

Hardyman met that answer with one of his quietly-positive
denials. "A man is never happy by himself," he said. "He is happy
with a companion. For instance, I am happy with you."

Isabel stopped and looked back. Hardyman's language was becoming
a little too explicit. "Surely we have lost Mrs. Drumblade and my
aunt," she said. "I don't see them anywhere."

You will see them directly; they are only a long way behind."
With this assurance, he returned, in his own obstinate way, to
his one object in view. "Miss Isabel, I want to ask you a
question. I'm not a ladies' man. I speak my mind plainly to
everybody--women included. Do you like being here to-day?"

Isabel's gravity was not proof against this very downright
question. "I should be hard to please," she said laughing, "if I
didn't enjoy my visit to the farm."

Hardyman pushed steadily forw ard through the obstacle of the
farm to the question of the farm's master. "You like being here,"
he repeated. "Do you like Me?"

This was serious. Isabel drew back a little, and looked at him.
He waited with the most impenetrable gravity for her reply.

"I think you can hardly expect me to answer that question," she
said

"Why not?"

"Our acquaintance has been a very short one, Mr. Hardyman. And,
if _you_ are so good as to forget the difference between us, I
think _I_ ought to remember it."

"What difference?"

"The difference in rank."

Hardyman suddenly stood still, and emphasized his next words by
digging his stick into the grass.

"If anything I have said has vexed you," he began, "tell me so
plainly, Miss Isabel, and I'll ask your pardon. But don't throw
my rank in my face. I cut adrift from all that nonsense when I
took this farm and got my living out of the horses. What has a
man's rank to do with a man's feelings?" he went on, with another
emphatic dig of his stick. "I am quite serious in asking if you
like me--for this good reason, that I like you. Yes, I do. You
remember that day when I bled the old lady's dog--well, I have
found out since then that there's a sort of incompleteness in my
life which I never suspected before. It's you who have put that
idea into my head. You didn't mean it, I dare say, but you have
done it all the same. I sat alone here yesterday evening smoking
my pipe--and I didn't enjoy it. I breakfasted alone this
morning--and I didn't enjoy _that_. I said to myself, She's
coming to lunch, that's one comfort--I shall enjoy lunch. That's
what I feel, roughly described. I don't suppose I've been five
minutes together without thinking of you, now in one way and now
in another, since the day when I first saw you. When a man comes
to my time of life, and has had any experience, he knows what
that means. It means, in plain English, that his heart is set on
a woman. You're the woman."

Isabel had thus far made several attempts to interrupt him,
without success. But, when Hardyman's confession attained its
culminating point, she insisted on being heard.

"If you will excuse me, sir," she interposed gravely, "I think I
had better go back to the cottage. My aunt is a stranger here,
and she doesn't know where to look for us."

"We don't want your aunt," Hardyman remarked, in his most
positive manner.

"We do want her," Isabel rejoined. "I won't venture to say it's
wrong in you, Mr. Hardyman, to talk to me as you have just done,
but I am quite sure it's very wrong of me to listen."

He looked at her with such unaffected surprise and distress that
she stopped, on the point of leaving him, and tried to make
herself better understood.

"I had no intention of offending you, sir," she said, a little
confusedly. "I only wanted to remind you that there are some
things which a gentleman in your position--" She stopped, tried
to finish the sentence, failed, and began another. "If I had been
a young lady in your own rank of life," she went on, "I might
have thanked you for paying me a compliment, and have given you a
serious answer. As it is, I am afraid that I must say that you
have surprised and disappointed me. I can claim very little for
myself, I know. But I did imagine--so long as there was nothing
unbecoming in my conduct--that I had some right to your respect."

Listening more and more impatiently, Hardyman took her by the
hand, and burst out with another of his abrupt questions.

"What can you possibly be thinking of?" he asked.

She gave him no answer; she only looked at him reproachfully, and
tried to release herself.

Hardyman held her hand faster than ever.

"I believe you think me an infernal scoundrel!" he said. "I can
stand a good deal, Miss Isabel, but I can't stand _that_. How
have I failed in respect toward you, if you please? I have told
you you're the woman my heart is set on. Well? Isn't it plain
what I want of you, when I say that? Isabel Miller, I want you to
be my wife!"

Isabel's only reply to this extraordinary proposal of marriage
was a faint cry of astonishment, followed by a sudden trembling
that shook her from head to foot.

Hardyman put his arm round her with a gentleness which his oldest
friend would have been surprised to see in him.

"Take your time to think of it," he said, dropping back again
into his usual quiet tone. "If you had known me a little better
you wouldn't have mistaken me, and you wouldn't be looking at me
now as if you were afraid to believe your own ears. What is there
so very wonderful in my wanting to marry you? I don't set up for
being a saint. When I was a younger man I was no better (and no
worse) than other young men. I'm getting on now to middle life. I
don't want romances and adventures--I want an easy existence with
a nice lovable woman who will make me a good wife. You're the
woman, I tell you again. I know it by what I've seen of you
myself, and by what I have heard of you from Lady Lydiard. She
said you were prudent, and sweet-tempered, and affectionate; to
which I wish to add that you have just the face and figure that I
like, and the modest manners and the blessed absence of all slang
in your talk, which I don't find in the young women I meet with
in the present day. That's my view of it: I think for myself.
What does it matter to me whether you're the daughter of a Duke
or the daughter of a Dairyman? It isn't your father I want to
marry--it's you. Listen to reason, there's a dear! We have only
one question to settle before we go back to your aunt. You
wouldn't answer me when I asked it a little while since. Will you
answer now? _Do_ you like me?"

Isabel looked up at him timidly.

"In my position, sir," she asked, "have I any right to like you?
What would your relations and friends think, if I said Yes?"

Hardyman gave her waist a little admonitory squeeze with his arm

"What? You're at it again? A nice way to answer a man, to call
him "Sir," and to get behind his rank as if it was a place of
refuge from him! I hate talking of myself, but you force me to
it. Here is my position in the world--I have got an elder
brother; he is married, and he has a son to succeed him, in the
title and the property. You understand, so far? Very well! Years
ago I shifted my share of the rank (whatever it may be) on to my
brother's shoulders. He is a thorough good fellow, and he has
carried my dignity for me, without once dropping it, ever since.
As for what people may say, they have said it already, from my
father and mother downward, in the time when I took to the horses
and the farm. If they're the wise people I take them for, they
won't be at the trouble of saying it all over again. No, no.
Twist it how you may, Miss Isabel, whether I'm single or whether
I'm married, I'm plain Alfred Hardyman; and everybody who knows
me knows that I go on my way, and please myself. If you don't
like me, it will be the bitterest disappointment I ever had in my
life; but say so honestly, all the same."

Where is the woman in Isabel's place whose capacity for
resistance would not have yielded a little to such an appeal as
this?

"I should be an insensible wretch" she replied warmly, "if I
didn't feel the honor you have done me, and feel it gratefully."

"Does that mean you will have me for a husband?" asked downright
Hardyman.

She was fairly driven into a corner; but (being a woman) she
tried to slip through his fingers at the last moment.

"Will you forgive me," she said, "if I ask you for a little more
time? I am so bewildered, I hardly know what to say or do for the
best. You see, Mr. Hardyman, it would be a dreadful thing for me
to be the cause of giving offense to your family. I am obliged to
think of that. It would be so distressing for you (I will say
nothing of myself) if your friends closed their doors on me. They
might say I was a designing girl, who had taken advantage of your
good opinion to raise herself in the world. Lady Lydiard warned
me long since not to be ambitious about myself and not to forget
my station in life, because she treated me like her adopted
daughter. Indeed--indeed, I can't tell you how I feel your
goodness, and the compliment--the very great compliment, you pay
me!
 My heart is free, and if I followed my own inclinations--" She
checked herself, conscious that she was on the brink of saying
too much. "Will you give me a few days," she pleaded, "to try if
I can think composedly of all this? I am only a girl, and I feel
quite dazzled by the prospect that you set before me."

Hardyman seized on those words as offering all the encouragement
that he desired to his suit.

"Have your own way in this thing and in everything!" he said,
with an unaccustomed fervor of language and manner. "I am so glad
to hear that your heart is open to me, and that all your
inclinations take my part."

Isabel instantly protested against this misrepresentation of what
she had really said, "Oh, Mr. Hardyman, you quite mistake me!"

He answered her very much as he had answered Lady Lydiard, when
she had tried to make him understand his proper relations towards
Isabel.

"No, no; I don't mistake you. I agree to every word you say. How
can I expect you to marry me, as you very properly remark, unless
I give you a day or two to make up your mind? It's quite enough
for me that you like the prospect. If Lady Lydiard treated you as
her daughter, why shouldn't you be my wife? It stands to reason
that you're quite right to marry a man who can raise you in the
world. I like you to be ambitious--though Heaven knows it isn't
much I can do for you, except to love you with all my heart.
Still, it's a great encouragement to hear that her Ladyship's
views agree with mine--"

"They don't agree, Mr. Hardyman!" protested poor Isabel. "You are
entirely misrepresenting--"

Hardyman cordially concurred in this view of the matter. "Yes!
yes! I can't pretend to represent her Ladyship's language, or
yours either; I am obliged to take my words as they come to me.
Don't disturb yourself: it's all right--I understand. You have
made me the happiest man living. I shall ride over to-morrow to
your aunt's house, and hear what you have to say to me. Mind
you're at home! Not a day must pass now without my seeing you. I
do love you, Isabel--I do, indeed!" He stooped, and kissed her
heartily. "Only to reward me," he explained, "for giving you time
to think."

She drew herself away from him--resolutely, not angrily. Before
she could make a third attempt to place the subject in its right
light before him, the luncheon bell rang at the cottage--and a
servant appeared evidently sent to look for them.

"Don't forget to-morrow," Hardyman whispered confidentially.
"I'll call early--and then go to London, and get the ring."


CHAPTER XVII.

EVENTS succeeded each other rapidly, after the memorable day to
Isabel of the luncheon at the farm.

On the next day (the ninth of the month) Lady Lydiard sent for
her steward, and requested him to explain his conduct in
repeatedly leaving the house without assigning any reason for his
absence. She did not dispute his claims to a freedom of action
which would not be permitted to an ordinary servant. Her
objection to his present course of proceeding related entirely to
the mystery in which it was involved, and to the uncertainty in
which the household was left as to the hour of his return. On
those grounds, she thought herself entitled to an explanation.
Moody's habitual reserve--strengthened, on this occasion, by his
dread of ridicule, if his efforts to serve Isabel ended in
failure--disinclined him to take Lady Lydiard into his
confidence, while his inquiries were still beset with obstacles
and doubts. He respectfully entreated her Ladyship to grant him a
delay of a few weeks before he entered on his explanation. Lady
Lydiard's quick temper resented his request. She told Moody
plainly that he was guilty of an act of presumption in making his
own conditions with his employer. He received the reproof with
exemplary resignation; but he held to his conditions
nevertheless. From that moment the result of the interview was no
longer in doubt. Moody was directed to send in his accounts. The
accounts having been examined, and found to be scrupulously
correct, he declined accepting the balance of salary that was
offered to him. The next day he left Lady Lydiard's service.

On the tenth of the month her Ladyship received a letter from her
nephew.

The health of Felix had not improved. He had made up his mind to
go abroad again towards the end of the month. In the meantime, he
had written to his friend in Paris, and he had the pleasure of
forwarding an answer. The letter inclosed announced that the lost
five-hundred-pound note had been made the subject of careful
inquiry in Paris. It had not been traced. The French police
offered to send to London one of their best men, well acquainted
with the English language, if Lady Lydiard was desirous of
employing him. He would be perfectly willing to act with an
English officer in conducting the investigation, should it be
thought necessary. Mr. Troy being consulted as to the expediency
of accepting this proposal, objected to the pecuniary terms
demanded as being extravagantly high. He suggested waiting a
little before any reply was sent to Paris; and he engaged
meanwhile to consult a London solicitor who had great experience
in cases of theft, and whose advice might enable them to dispense
entirely with the services of the French police.

Being now a free man again, Moody was able to follow his own
inclinations in regard to the instructions which he had received
from Old Sharon.

The course that had been recommended to him was repellent to the
self-respect and the sense of delicacy which were among the
inbred virtues of Moody's character. He shrank from forcing
himself as a friend on Hardyman's valet: he recoiled from the
idea of tempting the man to steal a specimen of his master's
handwriting. After some consideration, he decided on applying to
the agent who collected the rents at Hardyman's London chambers.
Being an old acquaintance of Moody's, this person would certainly
not hesitate to communicate the address of Hardyman's bankers, if
he knew it. The experiment, tried under these favoring
circumstances, proved perfectly successful. Moody proceeded to
Sharon's lodgings the same day, with the address of the bankers
in his pocketbook. The old vagabond, greatly amused by Moody's
scruples, saw plainly enough that, so long as he wrote the
supposed letter from Hardyman in the third person, it mattered
little what handwriting was employed, seeing that no signature
would be necessary. The letter was at once composed, on the model
which Sharon had already suggested to Moody, and a respectable
messenger (so far as outward appearances went) was employed to
take it to the bank. In half an hour the answer came back. It
added one more to the difficulties which beset the inquiry after
the lost money. No such sum as five hundred pounds had been paid,
within the dates mentioned, to the credit of Hardyman's account.

Old Sharon was not in the least discomposed by this fresh check.
"Give my love to the dear young lady," he said with his customary
impudence; "and tell her we are one degree nearer to finding the
thief."

Moody looked at him, doubting whether he was in jest or in
earnest.

"Must I squeeze a little more information into that thick head of
yours?" asked Sharon. With this question he produced a weekly
newspaper, and pointed to a paragraph which reported, among the
items of sporting news, Hardyman's recent visit to a sale of
horses at a town in the north of France. "We know he didn't pay
the bank-note in to his account," Sharon remarked. "What else did
he do with it? Took it to pay for the horses that he bought in
France! Do you see your way a little plainer now? Very good.
Let's try next if your money holds out. Somebody must cross the
Channel in search of the note. Which of us two is to sit in the
steam-boat with a white basin on his lap? Old Sharon, of course!"
He stopped to count the money still left, out of the sum
deposited by Moody to defray the cost of the inquiry. "All
right!" he went on. "I've got enough to pay my expenses there and
back. Don't stir out of London till you hear from me. I can't
tell how soon I may not want you. If there's any difficulty in
tracing the note, your hand will have to go into your pocket
again. Can't you get the lawyer to join you? Lord! how I should
enjoy squandering _his_ money! It's a downright disgrace to me to
have only got one guinea out of him. I could tear my flesh off my
bones when I think of it."

The same night Old Sharon started for France, by way of Dover and
Calais.

Two days elapsed, and brought no news from Moody's agent. On the
third day, he received some information relating to Sharon--not
from the man himself, but in a letter from Isabel Miller.

"For once, dear Robert," she wrote, "my judgment has turned out
to be sounder than yours. That hateful old man has confirmed my
worst opinion of him. Pray have him punished. Take him before a
magistrate and charge him with cheating you out of your money. I
inclose the sealed letter which he gave me at the farmhouse. The
week's time before I was to open it expired yesterday. Was there
ever anything so impudent and so inhuman? I am too vexed and
angry about the money you have wasted on this old wretch to write
more. Yours, gratefully and affectionately, Isabel."

The letter in which Old Sharon had undertaken (by way of
pacifying Isabel) to write the name of the thief, contained these
lines:

"You are a charming girl, my dear; but you still want one thing
to make you perfect--and that is a lesson in patience. I am proud
and happy to teach you. The name of the thief remains, for the
present, Mr. ---- (Blank)."

From Moody's point of view, there was but one thing to be said of
this: it was just like Old Sharon! Isabel's letter was of
infinitely greater interest to him. He feasted his eyes on the
words above the signature: she signed herself, "Yours gratefully
and affectionately." Did the last words mean that she was really
beginning to be fond of him? After kissing the word, he wrote a
comforting letter to her, in which he pledged himself to keep a
watchful eye on Sharon, and to trust him with no more money until
he had honestly earned it first.

A week passed. Moody (longing to see Isabel) still waited in vain
for news from France. He had just decided to delay his visit to
South Morden no longer, when the errand-boy employed by Sharon
brought him this message: "The old 'un's at home, and waitin' to
see yer."


CHAPTER XVIII.

SHARON'S news was not of an encouraging character. He had met
with serious difficulties, and had spent the last farthing of
Moody's money in attempting to overcome them.

One discovery of importance he had certainly made. A horse
withdrawn from the sale was the only horse that had met with
Hardyman's approval. He had secured the animal at the high
reserved price of twelve thousand francs--being four hundred and
eighty pounds in English money; and he had paid with an English
bank-note. The seller (a French horse-dealer resident in
Brussels) had returned to Belgium immediately on completing the
negotiations. Sharon had ascertained his address, and had written
to him at Brussels, inclosing the number of the lost banknote. In
two days he had received an answer, informing him that the
horse-dealer had been called to England by the illness of a
relative, and that he had hitherto failed to send any address to
which his letters could be forwarded. Hearing this, and having
exhausted his funds, Sharon had returned to London. It now rested
with Moody to decide whether the course of the inquiry should
follow the horse-dealer next. Here was the cash account, showing
how the money had been spent. And there was Sharon, with his pipe
in his mouth and his dog on his lap, waiting for orders.

Moody wisely took time to consider before he committed himself to
a decision. In the meanwhile, he ventured to recommend a new
course of proceeding which Sharon's report had suggested to his
mind.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we have taken the roundabout way
of getting to our end in view, when the straight road lay before
us. If Mr. Hardyman has passed the stolen note, you know, as well
as I do, that he has passed it innocently. Instead of wasting
time and money in trying to trace a stranger, why not tell Mr.
Hardyman what has happened, and ask him to give us the number of
the note? You can't think of everything, I know; but it does seem
strange that this idea didn't occur to you before you went to
France."

"Mr. Moody," said Old Sharon, "I shall have to cut your
acquaintance. You are a man without faith; I don't like you. As
if I hadn't thought of Hardyman weeks since!" he exclaimed
contemptuously. "Are you really soft enough to suppose that a
gentleman in his position would talk about his money affairs to
me? You know mighty little of him if you do. A fortnight since I
sent one of my men (most respectably dressed) to hang about his
farm, and see what information he could pick up. My man became
painfully acquainted with the toe of a boot. It was thick, sir;
and it was Hardyman's."

"I will run the risk of the boot," Moody replied, in his quiet
way.

"And put the question to Hardyman?"

"Yes."

"Very good," said Sharon. "If you get your answer from his
tongue, instead of his boot, the case is cleared up--unless I
have made a complete mess of it. Look here, Moody! If you want to
do me a good turn, tell the lawyer that the guinea-opinion was
the right one. Let him know that _he_ was the fool, not you, when
he buttoned up his pockets and refused to trust me. And, I say,"
pursued Old Sharon, relapsing into his customary impudence,
"you're in love, you know, with that nice girl. I like her
myself. When you marry her invite me to the wedding. I'll make a
sacrifice; I'll brush my hair and wash my face in honor of the
occasion."

Returning to his lodgings, Moody found two letters waiting on the
table. One of them bore the South Morden postmark. He opened that
letter first.

It was written by Miss Pink. The first lines contained an urgent
entreaty to keep the circumstances connected with the loss of the
five hundred pounds the strictest secret from everyone in
general, and from Hardyman in particular. The reasons assigned
for making the strange request were next expressed in these
terms: "My niece Isabel is, I am happy to inform you, engaged to
be married to Mr. Hardyman. If the slightest hint reached him of
her having been associated, no matter how cruelly and unjustly,
with a suspicion of theft, the marriage would be broken off, and
the result to herself and to everybody connected with her, would
be disgrace for the rest of our lives."

On the blank space at the foot of the page a few words were added
in Isabel's writing: "Whatever changes there may be in my life,
your place in my heart is one that no other person can fill: it
is the place of my dearest friend. Pray write and d tell me that
you are not distressed and not angry. My one anxiety is that you
should remember what I have always told you about the state of my
own feelings. My one wish is that you will still let me love you
and value you, as I might have loved and valued a brother."

The letter dropped from Moody's hand. Not a word--not even a
sigh--passed his lips. In tearless silence he submitted to the
pang that wrung him. In tearless silence he contemplated the
wreck of his life.


CHAPTER XIX.

THE narrative returns to South Morden, and follows the events
which attended Isabel's marriage engagement.

To say that Miss Pink, inflated by the triumph, rose, morally
speaking, from the earth and floated among the clouds, is to
indicate faintly the effect produced on the ex-schoolmistress
when her niece first informed her of what had happened at the
farm. Attacked on one side by her aunt, and on the other by
Hardyman, and feebly defended, at the best, by her own doubts and
misgivings, Isabel ended by surrendering at discretion. Like
thousands of other women in a similar position, she was in the
last degree uncertain as to the state of her own heart. To what
extent she was insensibly influenced by Hardyman's commanding
position in believing herself to be sincerely attached to him, it
was beyond her power of self-examination to discover. He doubly
dazzled her by his birth and by his celebrity. Not in England
only, but throughout Europe, he was a recognized authority on his
own subject. How could she-- how could any woman--resist the
influence of his steady mind, his firmness of purpose, his manly
resolution to owe everything to himself and nothing to his rank,
set off as these attractive qualities were by the outward and
personal advantages which exercise an ascendancy of their own?
Isabel was fascinated, and yet Isabel was not at ease. In her
lonely moments she was troubled by regretful thoughts of Moody,
which perplexed and irritated her. She had always behaved
honestly to him; she had never encouraged him to hope that his
love for her had the faintest prospect of being returned. Yet,
knowing, as she did, that her conduct was blameless so far, there
were nevertheless perverse sympathies in her which took his part.
In the wakeful hours of the night there were whispering voices in
her which said: "Think of Moody!" Had there been a growing
kindness towards this good friend in her heart, of which she
herself was not aware? She tried to detect it--to weigh it for
what it was really worth. But it lay too deep to be discovered
and estimated, if it did really exist--if it had any sounder
origin than her own morbid fancy. In the broad light of day, in
the little bustling duties of life, she forgot it again. She
could think of what she ought to wear on the wedding day; she
could even try privately how her new signature, "Isabel
Hardyman," would look when she had the right to use it. On the
whole, it may be said that the time passed smoothly--with some
occasional checks and drawbacks, which were the more easily
endured seeing that they took their rise in Isabel's own conduct.
Compliant as she was in general, there were two instances, among
others, in which her resolution to take her own way was not to be
overcome. She refused to write either to Moody or to Lady Lydiard
informing them of her engagement; and she steadily disapproved of
Miss Pink's policy of concealment, in the matter of the robbery
at Lady Lydiard's house. Her aunt could only secure her as a
passive accomplice by stating family considerations in the
strongest possible terms. "If the disgrace was confined to you,
my dear, I might leave you to decide. But I am involved in it, as
your nearest relative; and, what is more, even the sacred
memories of your father and mother might feel the slur cast on
them." This exaggerated language--like all exaggerated language,
a mischievous weapon in the arsenal of weakness and
prejudice--had its effect on Isabel. Reluctantly and sadly, she
consented to be silent.

Miss Pink wrote word of the engagement to Moody first; reserving
to a later day the superior pleasure of informing Lady Lydiard of
the very event which that audacious woman had declared to be
impossible. To her aunt's surprise, just as she was about to
close the envelope Isabel stepped forward, and inconsistently
requested leave to add a postscript to the very letter which she
had refused to write! Miss Pink was not even permitted to see the
postscript. Isabel secured the envelope the moment she laid down
her pen, and retired to her room with a headache (which was
heartache in disguise) for the rest of the day.

While the question of marriage was still in debate, an event
occurred which exercised a serious influence on Hardyman's future
plans.

He received a letter from the Continent which claimed his
immediate attention. One of the sovereigns of Europe had decided
on making some radical changes in the mounting and equipment of a
cavalry regiment; and he required the assistance of Hardyman in
that important part of the contemplated reform which was
connected with the choice and purchase of horses. Setting his own
interests out of the question, Hardyman owed obligations to the
kindness of his illustrious correspondent which made it
impossible for him to send an excuse. In a fortnight's time, at
the latest, it would be necessary for him to leave England; and a
month or more might elapse before it would be possible for him to
return.

Under these circumstances, he proposed, in his own precipitate
way, to hasten the date of the marriage. The necessary legal
delay would permit the ceremony to be performed on that day
fortnight. Isabel might then accompany him on his journey, and
spend a brilliant honeymoon at the foreign Court. She at once
refused, not only to accept his proposal, but even to take it
into consideration. While Miss Pink dwelt eloquently on the
shortness of the notice, Miss Pink's niece based her resolution
on far more important grounds. Hardyman had not yet announced the
contemplated marriage to his parents and friends; and Isabel was
determined not to become his wife until she could be first
assured of a courteous and tolerant reception by the family--if
she could hope for no warmer welcome at their hands.

Hardyman was not a man who yielded easily, even in trifles. In
the present case, his dearest interests were concerned in
inducing Isabel to reconsider her decision. He was still vainly
trying to shake her resolution, when the afternoon post brought a
letter for Miss Pink which introduced a new element of
disturbance into the discussion. The letter was nothing less than
Lady Lydiard's reply to the written announcement of Isabel's
engagement, despatched on the previous day by Miss Pink.

Her Ladyship's answer was a surprisingly short one. It only
contained these lines:

"Lady Lydiard begs to acknowledge the receipt of Miss Pink's
letter requesting that she will say nothing to Mr. Hardyman of
the loss of a bank-note in her house, and, assigning as a reason
that Miss Isabel Miller is engaged to be married to Mr. Hardyman,
and might be prejudiced in his estimation if the facts were made
known. Miss Pink may make her mind easy. Lady Lydiard had not the
slightest intention of taking Mr. Hardyman into her confidence on
the subject of her domestic affairs. With regard to the proposed
marriage, Lady Lydiard casts no doubt on Miss Pink's perfect
sincerity and good faith; but, at the same time, she positively
declines to believe that Mr. Hardyman means to make Miss Isabel
Miller his wife. Lady L. will yield to the evidence of a
properly-attested certificate--and to nothing else."


A folded piece of paper, directed to Isabel, dropped out of this
characteristic letter as Miss Pink turned from the first page to
the second. Lady Lydiard addressed her adopted daughter in these
words:

"I was on the point of leaving home to visit you again, when I
received your aunt's letter. My poor deluded child, no words can
tell how distressed I am about you. You are already sacrificed to
the folly of the most foolish woman living. For God's sake, take
care you do not fall a victim next to the designs of a profligate
man. Come to me instantly, Isabel, and I promise to take care of
you."

Fortified by these letters, and aided by Miss Pink's indignation,
Hardyman pressed his proposal on Isabel with renewed resolution.
She made no attempt to combat his arguments--she only held firmly
to her decision. Without some encouragement from Hardyman's
father and mother she still steadily refused to become his wife.
Irritated already by Lady Lydiard's letters, he lost the
self-command which so eminently distinguished him in the ordinary
affairs of life, and showed the domineering and despotic temper
which was an inbred part of his disposition. Isabel's high spirit
at once resented the harsh terms in which he spoke to her. In the
plainest words, she released him from his engagement, and,
without waiting for his excuses, quitted the room.

Left together, Hardyman and Miss Pink devised an arrangement
which paid due respect to Isabel's scruples, and at the same time
met Lady Lydiard's insulting assertion of disbelief in Hardyman's
honor, by a formal and public announcement of the marriage.

It was proposed to give a garden party at the farm in a week's
time for the express purpose of introducing Isabel to Hardyman's
family and friends in the character of his betrothed wife. If his
father and mother accepted the invitation, Isabel's only
objection to hastening the union would fall to the ground.
Hardyman might, in that case, plead with his Imperial
correspondent for a delay in his departure of a few days more;
and th e marriage might still take place before he left England.
Isabel, at Miss Pink's intercession, was induced to accept her
lover's excuses, and, in the event of her favorable reception by
Hardyman's parents at the farm, to give her consent (not very
willingly even yet) to hastening the ceremony which was to make
her Hardyman's wife.

On the next morning the whole of the invitations were sent out,
excepting the invitation to Hardyman's father and mother. Without
mentioning it to Isabel, Hardyman decided on personally appealing
to his mother before he ventured on taking the head of the family
into his confidence.

The result of the interview was partially successful--and no
more. Lord Rotherfield declined to see his youngest son; and he
had engagements which would, under any circumstances, prevent his
being present at the garden party. But at the express request of
Lady Rotherfield, he was willing to make certain concessions.

"I have always regarded Alfred as a barely sane person," said his
Lordship, "since he turned his back on his prospects to become a
horse dealer. If we decline altogether to sanction this new
act--I won't say, of insanity, I will say, of absurdity--on his
part, it is impossible to predict to what discreditable
extremities he may not proceed. We must temporise with Alfred. In
the meantime I shall endeavor to obtain some information
respecting this young person--named Miller, I think you said, and
now resident at South Morden. If I am satisfied that she is a
woman of reputable character, possessing an average education and
presentable manners, we may as well let Alfred take his own way.
He is out of the pale of Society, as it is; and Miss Miller has
no father and mother to complicate matters, which is distinctly a
merit on her part and, in short, if the marriage is not
absolutely disgraceful, the wisest way (as we have no power to
prevent it) will be to submit. You will say nothing to Alfred
about what I propose to do. I tell you plainly I don't trust him.
You will simply inform him from me that I want time to consider,
and that, unless he hears to the contrary in the interval, he may
expect to have the sanction of your presence at his breakfast, or
luncheon, or whatever it is. I must go to town in a day or two,
and I shall ascertain what Alfred's friends know about this last
of his many follies, if I meet any of them at the club."

Returning to South Morden in no serene frame of mind, Hardyman
found Isabel in a state of depression which perplexed and alarmed
him.

The news that his mother might be expected to be present at the
garden party failed entirely to raise her spirits. The only
explanation she gave of the change in her was, that the dull
heavy weather of the last few days made her feel a little languid
and nervous. Naturally dissatisfied with this reply to his
inquiries, Hardyman asked for Miss Pink. He was informed that
Miss Pink could not see him. She was constitutionally subject to
asthma, and, having warnings of the return of the malady, she was
(by the doctor's advice) keeping her room. Hardyman returned to
the farm in a temper which was felt by everybody in his
employment, from the trainer to the stable-boys.

While the apology made for Miss Pink stated no more than the
plain truth, it must be confessed that Hardyman was right in
declining to be satisfied with Isabel's excuse for the melancholy
that oppressed her. She had that morning received Moody's answer
to the lines which she had addressed to him at the end of her
aunt's letter; and she had not yet recovered from the effect
which it had produced on her spirits.

"It is impossible for me to say honestly that I am not distressed
(Moody wrote) by the news of your marriage engagement. The blow
has fallen very heavily on me. When I look at the future now, I
see only a dreary blank. This is not your fault--you are in no
way to blame. I remember the time when I should have been too
angry to own this--when I might have said or done things which I
should have bitterly repented afterwards. That time is past. My
temper has been softened, since I have befriended you in your
troubles. That good at least has come out of my foolish hopes,
and perhaps out of the true sympathy which I have felt for you. I
can honestly ask you to accept my heart's dearest wishes for your
happiness--and I can keep the rest to myself.

"Let me say a word now relating to the efforts that I have made
to help you, since that sad day when you left Lady Lydiard's
house.

"I had hoped (for reasons which it is needless to mention here)
to interest Mr. Hardyman himself in aiding our inquiry. But your
aunt's wishes, as expressed in her letter to me, close my lips. I
will only beg you, at some convenient time, to let me mention the
last discoveries that we have made; leaving it to your
discretion, when Mr. Hardyman has become your husband, to ask him
the questions which, under other circumstances, I should have put
to him myself.

"It is, of course, possible that the view I take of Mr.
Hardyman's capacity to help us may be a mistaken one. In this
case, if you still wish the investigation to be privately carried
on, I entreat you to let me continue to direct it, as the
greatest favor you can confer on your devoted old friend.

"You need be under no apprehension about the expense to which you
are likely to put me. I have unexpectedly inherited what is to me
a handsome fortune.

"The same post which brought your aunt's letter brought a line
from a lawyer asking me to see him on the subject of my late
father's affairs. I waited a day or two before I could summon
heart enough to see him, or to see anybody; and then I went to
his office. You have heard that my father's bank stopped payment,
at a time of commercial panic. His failure was mainly
attributable to the treachery of a friend to whom he had lent a
large sum of money, and who paid him the yearly interest, without
acknowledging that every farthing of it had been lost in
unsuccessful speculations. The son of this man has prospered in
business, and he has honorably devoted a part of his wealth to
the payment of his father's creditors. Half the sum due to _my_
father has thus passed into my hands as his next of kin; and the
other half is to follow in course of time. If my hopes had been
fulfilled, how gladly I should have shared my prosperity with
you! As it is, I have far more than enough for my wants as a
lonely man, and plenty left to spend in your service.

"God bless and prosper you, my dear. I shall ask you to accept a
little present from me, among the other offerings that are made
to you before the wedding day.-- R.M."


The studiously considerate and delicate tone in which these lines
were written had an effect on Isabel which was exactly the
opposite of the effect intended by the writer. She burst into a
passionate fit of tears; and in the safe solitude of her own
room, the despairing words escaped her, "I wish I had died before
I met with Alfred Hardyman!"

As the days wore on, disappointments and difficulties seemed by a
kind of fatality to beset the contemplated announcement of the
marriage.

Miss Pink's asthma, developed by the unfavorable weather, set the
doctor's art at defiance, and threatened to keep that unfortunate
lady a prisoner in her room on the day of the party. Hardyman's
invitations were in some cases refused; and in others accepted by
husbands with excuses for the absence of their wives. His elder
brother made an apology for himself as well as for his wife.
Felix Sweetsir wrote, "With pleasure, dear Alfred, if my health
permits me to leave the house." Lady Lydiard, invited at Miss
Pink's special request, sent no reply. The one encouraging
circumstance was the silence of Lady Rotherfield. So long as her
son received no intimation to the contrary, it was a sign that
Lord Rotherfield permitted his wife to sanction the marriage by
her presence.

Hardyman wrote to his Imperial correspondent, engaging to leave
England on the earliest possible day, and asking to be pardoned
if he failed to express himself more definitely, in consideration
of domestic affairs, which it was necessary to settle before he
started  for the Continent. I f there should not be time enough to
write again, he promised to send a telegraphic announcement of
his departure. Long afterwards, Hardyman remembered the
misgivings that had troubled him when he wrote that letter. In
the rough draught of it, he had mentioned, as his excuse for not
being yet certain of his own movements, that he expected to be
immediately married. In the fair copy, the vague foreboding of
some accident to come was so painfully present to his mind, that
he struck out the words which referred to his marriage, and
substituted the designedly indefinite phrase, "domestic affairs."


CHAPTER XX.

THE day of the garden party arrived. There was no rain; but the
air was heavy, and the sky was overcast by lowering clouds.

Some hours before the guests were expected, Isabel arrived alone
at the farm, bearing the apologies of unfortunate Miss Pink,
still kept a prisoner in her bed-chamber by the asthma. In the
confusion produced at the cottage by the preparations for
entertaining the company, the one room in which Hardyman could
receive Isabel with the certainty of not being interrupted was
the smoking-room. To this haven of refuge he led her--still
reserved and silent, still not restored to her customary spirits.
"If any visitors come before the time," Hardyman said to his
servant, "tell them I am engaged at the stables. I must have an
hour's quiet talk with you," he continued, turning to Isabel, "or
I shall be in too bad a temper to receive my guests with common
politeness. The worry of giving this party is not to be told in
words. I almost wish I had been content with presenting you to my
mother, and had let the rest of my acquaintances go to the
devil."

A quiet half hour passed; and the first visitor, a stranger to
the servants, appeared at the cottage-gate. He was a middle-aged
man, and he had no wish to disturb Mr. Hardyman. "I will wait in
the grounds," he said, "and trouble nobody." The middle-aged man,
who expressed himself in these modest terms, was Robert Moody.

Five minutes later, a carriage drove up to the gate. An elderly
lady got out of it, followed by a fat white Scotch terrier, who
growled at every stranger within his reach. It is needless to
introduce Lady Lydiard and Tommie.

Informed that Mr. Hardyman was at the stables, Lady Lydiard gave
the servant her card. "Take that to your master, and say I won't
detain him five minutes." With these words, her Ladyship
sauntered into the grounds. She looked about her with observant
eyes; not only noticing the tent which had been set up on the
grass to accommodate the expected guests, but entering it, and
looking at the waiters who were engaged in placing the luncheon
on the table. Returning to the outer world, she next remarked
that Mr. Hardyman's lawn was in very bad order. Barren sun-dried
patches, and little holes and crevices opened here and there by
the action of the summer heat, announced that the lawn, like
everything else at the farm, had been neglected, in the exclusive
attention paid to the claims of the horses. Reaching a shrubbery
which bounded one side of the grounds next, her Ladyship became
aware of a man slowly approaching her, to all appearance absorbed
in thought. The man drew a little nearer. She lifted her glasses
to her eyes and recognized--Moody.

No embarrassment was produced on either side by this unexpected
meeting. Lady Lydiard had, not long since, sent to ask her former
steward to visit her; regretting, in her warm-hearted way, the
terms on which they had separated, and wishing to atone for the
harsh language that had escaped her at their parting interview.
In the friendly talk which followed the reconciliation, Lady
Lydiard not only heard the news of Moody's pecuniary
inheritance--but, noticing the change in his appearance for the
worse, contrived to extract from him the confession of his
ill-starred passion for Isabel. To discover him now, after all
that he had acknowledged, walking about the grounds at Hardyman's
farm, took her Ladyship completely by surprise. "Good Heavens!"
she exclaimed, in her loudest tones, "what are you doing here?"

"You mentioned Mr. Hardyman's garden party, my Lady, when I had
the honor of waiting on you," Moody answered. "Thinking over it
afterward, it seemed the fittest occasion I could find for making
a little wedding present to Miss Isabel. Is there any harm in my
asking Mr. Hardyman to let me put the present on her plate, so
that she may see it when she sits down to luncheon? If your
Ladyship thinks so, I will go away directly, and send the gift by
post."

Lady Lydiard looked at him attentively. "You don't despise the
girl," she asked, "for selling herself for rank and money? I
do--I can tell you!"

Moody's worn white face flushed a little. "No, my Lady," he
answered, "I can't hear you say that! Isabel would not have
engaged herself to Mr. Hardyman unless she had been fond of
him--as fond, I dare say, as I once hoped she might be of me.
It's a hard thing to confess that; but I do confess it, in
justice to her--God bless her!"

The generosity that spoke in those simple words touched the
finest sympathies in Lady Lydiard's nature. "Give me your hand,"
she said, with her own generous spirit kindling in her eyes. "You
have a great heart, Moody. Isabel Miller is a fool for not
marrying _you_--and one day she will know it!"

Before a word more could pass between them, Hardyman's voice was
audible on the other side of the shrubbery, calling irritably to
his servant to find Lady Lydiard.

Moody retired to the further end of the walk, while Lady Lydiard
advanced in the opposite direction, so as to meet Hardyman at the
entrance to the shrubbery. He bowed stiffly, and begged to know
why her Ladyship had honored him with a visit.

Lady Lydiard replied without noticing the coldness of her
reception.

"I have not been very well, Mr. Hardyman, or you would have seen
me before this. My only object in presenting myself here is to
make my excuses personally for having written of you in terms
which expressed a doubt of your honor. I have done you an
injustice, and I beg you to forgive me."

Hardyman acknowledged this frank apology as unreservedly as it
had been offered to him. "Say no more, Lady Lydiard. And let me
hope, now you are here, that you will honor my little party with
your presence."

Lady Lydiard gravely stated her reasons for not accepting the
invitation.

"I disapprove so strongly of unequal marriages," she said,
walking on slowly towards the cottage, "that I cannot, in common
consistency, become one of your guests. I shall always feel
interested in Isabel Miller's welfare; and I can honestly say I
shall be glad if your married life proves that my old-fashioned
prejudices are without justification in your case. Accept my
thanks for your invitation; and let me hope that my plain
speaking has not offended you."

She bowed, and looked about her for Tommie before she advanced to
the carriage waiting for her at the gate. In the surprise of
seeing Moody she had forgotten to look back for the dog when she
entered the shrubbery. She now called to him, and blew the
whistle at her watchchain. Not a sign of Tommie was to be seen.
Hardyman instantly directed the servants to search in the cottage
and out of the cottage for the dog. The order was obeyed with all
needful activity and intelligence, and entirely without success.
For the time being at any rate, Tommie was lost.

Hardyman promised to have the dog looked for in every part of the
farm, and to send him back in the care of one of his own men.
With these polite assurances Lady Lydiard was obliged to be
satisfied. She drove away in a very despondent frame of mind.
"First Isabel, and now Tommie," thought her Ladyship. "I am
losing the only companions who made life tolerable to me."

Returning from the garden gate, after taking leave of his
visitor, Hardyman received from his servant a handful of letters
which had just arrived for him. Walking slowly over the lawn as
he opened them, he found nothing but excuses for the absence of
guests who had already accepted their invitations. He had just
thrust the letters into his pocket, when he heard footsteps
behind him, and, looking
 round, found himself confronted by Moody.

"Hullo! have you come to lunch?" Hardyman asked, roughly.

"I have come here, sir, with a little gift for Miss Isabel, in
honor of her marriage," Moody answered quietly, "and I ask your
permission to put it on the table, so that she may see it when
your guests sit down to luncheon."

He opened a jeweler's case as he spoke, containing a plain gold
bracelet with an inscription engraved on the inner side: "To Miss
Isabel Miller, with the sincere good wishes of Robert Moody."

Plain as it was, the design of the bracelet was unusually
beautiful. Hardyman had noticed Moody's agitation on the day when
he had met Isabel near her aunt's house, and had drawn his own
conclusions from it. His face darkened with a momentary jealousy
as he looked at the bracelet. "All right, old fellow!" he said,
with contemptuous familiarity. "Don't be modest. Wait and give it
to her with your own hand."

"No, sir," said Moody "I would rather leave it, if you please, to
speak for itself."

Hardyman understood the delicacy of feeling which dictated those
words, and, without well knowing why, resented it. He was on the
point of speaking, under the influence of this unworthy motive,
when Isabel's voice reached his ears, calling to him from the
cottage.

Moody's face contracted with a sudden expression of pain as he,
too, recognized the voice. "Don't let me detain you, sir," he
said, sadly. "Good-morning!"

Hardyman left him without ceremony. Moody, slowly following,
entered the tent. All the preparations for the luncheon had been
completed; nobody was there. The places to be occupied by the
guests were indicated by cards bearing their names. Moody found
Isabel's card, and put his bracelet inside the folded napkin on
her plate. For a while he stood with his hand on the table,
thinking. The temptation to communicate once more with Isabel
before he lost her forever, was fast getting the better of his
powers of resistance.

"If I could persuade her to write a word to say she liked her
bracelet," he thought, "it would be a comfort when I go back to
my solitary life." He tore a leaf out of his pocket book and
wrote on it, "One line to say you accept my gift and my good
wishes. Put it under the cushion of your chair, and I shall find
it when the company have left the tent." He slipped the paper
into the case which held the bracelet, and instead of leaving the
farm as he had intended, turned back to the shelter of the
shrubbery.


CHAPTER XXI.

HARDYMAN went on to the cottage. He found Isabel in some
agitation. And there, by her side, with his tail wagging slowly,
and his eye on Hardyman in expectation of a possible kick--there
was the lost Tommie!

"Has Lady Lydiard gone?" Isabel asked eagerly.

"Yes," said Hardyman. "Where did you find the dog?"

As events had ordered it, the dog had found Isabel, under these
circumstances.

The appearance of Lady Lydiard's card in the smoking-room had
been an alarming event for Lady Lydiard's adopted daughter. She
was guiltily conscious of not having answered her Ladyship's
note, inclosed in Miss Pink's letter, and of not having taken her
Ladyship's advice in regulating her conduct towards Hardyman. As
he rose to leave the room and receive his visitor in the grounds,
Isabel begged him to say nothing of her presence at the farm,
unless Lady Lydiard exhibited a forgiving turn of mind by asking
to see her. Left by herself in the smoking-room, she suddenly
heard a bark in the passage which had a familiar sound in her
ears. She opened the door--and in rushed Tommie, with one of his
shrieks of delight! Curiosity had taken him into the house. He
had heard the voices in the smoking-room; had recognized Isabel's
voice; and had waited, with his customary cunning and his
customary distrust of strangers, until Hardyman was out of the
way. Isabel kissed and caressed him, and then drove him out again
to the lawn, fearing that Lady Lydiard might return to look for
him. Going back to the smoking-room, she stood at the window
watching for Hardyman's return. When the servants came to look
for the dog, she could only tell them that she had last seen him
in the grounds, not far from the cottage. The useless search
being abandoned, and the carriage having left the gate, who
should crawl out from the back of a cupboard in which some empty
hampers were placed but Tommie himself! How he had contrived to
get back to the smoking-room (unless she had omitted to
completely close the door on her return) it was impossible to
say. But there he was, determined this time to stay with Isabel,
and keeping in his hiding place until he heard the movement of
the carriage-wheels, which informed him that his lawful mistress
had left the cottage! Isabel had at once called Hardyman, on the
chance that the carriage might yet be stopped. It was already out
of sight, and nobody knew which of two roads it had taken, both
leading to London. In this emergency, Isabel could only look at
Hardyman and ask what was to be done.

"I can't spare a servant till after the party," he answered. "The
dog must be tied up in the stables."

Isabel shook her head. Tommie was not accustomed to be tied up.
He would make a disturbance, and he would be beaten by the
grooms. "I will take care of him," she said. "He won't leave me."

"There's something else to think of besides the dog," Hardyman
rejoined irritably. "Look at these letters!" He pulled them out
of his pocket as he spoke. "Here are no less than seven men, all
calling themselves my friends, who accepted my invitation, and
who write to excuse themselves on the very day of the party. Do
you know why? They're all afraid of my father--I forgot to tell
you he's a Cabinet Minister as well as a Lord. Cowards and cads.
They have heard he isn't coming and they think to curry favor
with the great man by stopping away. Come along, Isabel! Let's
take their names off the luncheon table. Not a man of them shall
ever darken my doors again!"

"I am to blame for what has happened," Isabel answered sadly. "I
am estranging you from your friends. There is still time, Alfred,
to alter your mind and let me go."

He put his arm round her with rough fondness. "I would sacrifice
every friend I have in the world rather than lose you. Come
along!"

They left the cottage. At the entrance to the tent, Hardyman
noticed the dog at Isabel's heels, and vented his ill-temper, as
usual with male humanity, on the nearest unoffending creature
that he could find. "Be off, you mongrel brute!" he shouted. The
tail of Tommie relaxed from its customary tight curve over the
small of his back; and the legs of Tommie (with his tail between
them) took him at full gallop to the friendly shelter of the
cupboard in the smoking-room. It was one of those trifling
circumstances which women notice seriously. Isabel said nothing;
she only thought to herself, "I wish he had shown his temper when
I first knew him!"

They entered the tent.

"I'll read the names," said Hardyman, "and you find the cards and
tear them up. Stop! I'll keep the cards. You're just the sort of
woman my father likes. He'll be reconciled to me when he sees
you, after we are married. If one of those men ever asks him for
a place, I'll take care, if it's years hence, to put an obstacle
in his way! Here; take my pencil, and make a mark on the cards to
remind me; the same mark I set against a horse in my book when I
don't like him--a cross, inclosed in a circle." He produced his
pocketbook. His hands trembled with anger as he gave the pencil
to Isabel and laid the book on the table. He had just read the
name of the first false friend, and Isabel had just found the
card, when a servant appeared with a message. "Mrs. Drumblade has
arrived, sir, and wishes to see you on a matter of the greatest
importance."

Hardyman left the tent, not very willingly. "Wait here," he said
to Isabel; "I'll be back directly."

She was standing near her own place at the table. Moody had left
one end of the jeweler's case visible above the napkin, to
attract her attention. In a minute more the bracelet and note
were in her hands. She dropped on her chair, overwhelmed by the
conflicting emotions that rose in her at
 the sight of the bracelet, at the reading of the note. Her head
drooped, and the tears filled her eyes. "Are all women as blind
as I have been to what is good and noble in the men who love
them?" she wondered, sadly. "Better as it is," she thought, with
a bitter sigh; "I am not worthy of him."

As she took up the pencil to write her answer to Moody on the
back of her dinner-card, the servant appeared again at the door
of the tent.

"My master wants you at the cottage, miss, immediately."

Isabel rose, putting the bracelet and the note in the
silver-mounted leather pocket (a present from Hardyman) which
hung at her belt. In the hurry of passing round the table to get
out, she never noticed that her dress touched Hardyman's
pocketbook, placed close to the edge, and threw it down on the
grass below. The book fell into one of the heat cracks which Lady
Lydiard had noticed as evidence of the neglected condition of the
cottage lawn.

"You ought to hear the pleasant news my sister has just brought
me," said Hardyman, when Isabel joined him in the parlor. "Mrs.
Drumblade has been told, on the best authority, that my mother is
not coming to the party."

"There must be some reason, of course, dear Isabel," added Mrs.
Drumblade. "Have you any idea of what it can be? I haven't seen
my mother myself; and all my inquiries have failed to find it
out."

She looked searchingly at Isabel as she spoke. The mask of
sympathy on her face was admirably worn. Nobody who possessed
only a superficial acquaintance with Mrs. Drumblade's character
would have suspected how thoroughly she was enjoying in secret
the position of embarrassment in which her news had placed her
brother. Instinctively doubting whether Mrs. Drumblade's friendly
behavior was quite as sincere as it appeared to be, Isabel
answered that she was a stranger to Lady Rotherfield, and was
therefore quite at a loss to explain the cause of her ladyship's
absence. As she spoke, the guests began to arrive in quick
succession, and the subject was dropped as a matter of course.

It was not a merry party. Hardyman's approaching marriage had
been made the topic of much malicious gossip, and Isabel's
character had, as usual in such cases, become the object of all
the false reports that scandal could invent. Lady Rotherfield's
absence confirmed the general conviction that Hardyman was
disgracing himself. The men were all more or less uneasy. The
women resented the discovery that Isabel was--personally
speaking, at least--beyond the reach of hostile criticism. Her
beauty was viewed as a downright offense; her refined and modest
manners were set down as perfect acting; "really disgusting, my
dear, in so young a girl." General Drumblade, a large and mouldy
veteran, in a state of chronic astonishment (after his own
matrimonial experience) at Hardyman's folly in marrying at all,
diffused a wide circle of gloom, wherever he went and whatever he
did. His accomplished wife, forcing her high spirits on
everybody's attention with a sort of kittenish playfulness,
intensified the depressing effect of the general dullness by all
the force of the strongest contrast. After waiting half an hour
for his mother, and waiting in vain, Hardyman led the way to the
tent in despair. "The sooner I fill their stomachs and get rid of
them," he thought savagely, "the better I shall be pleased!"

The luncheon was attacked by the company with a certain silent
ferocity, which the waiters noticed as remarkable, even in their
large experience. The men drank deeply, but with wonderfully
little effect in raising their spirits; the women, with the
exception of amiable Mrs. Drumblade, kept Isabel deliberately out
of the conversation that went on among them. General Drumblade,
sitting next to her in one of the places of honor, discoursed to
Isabel privately on "my brother-in-law Hardyman's infernal
temper." A young marquis, on her other side--a mere lad, chosen
to make the necessary speech in acknowledgment of his superior
rank--rose, in a state of nervous trepidation, to propose
Isabel's health as the chosen bride of their host. Pale and
trembling, conscious of having forgotten the words which he had
learnt beforehand, this unhappy young nobleman began: "Ladies and
gentlemen, I haven't an idea--" He stopped, put his hand to his
head, stared wildly, and sat down again; having contrived to
state his own case with masterly brevity and perfect truth, in a
speech of seven words.

While the dismay, in some cases, and the amusement in others, was
still at its height, Hardyman's valet made his appearance, and,
approaching his master, said in a whisper, "Could I speak to you,
sit, for a moment outside?"

"What the devil do you want?" Hardyman asked irritably. "Is that
a letter in your hand? Give it to me."

The valet was a Frenchman. In other words, he had a sense of what
was due to himself. His master had forgotten this. He gave up the
letter with a certain dignity of manner, and left the tent.
Hardyman opened the letter. He turned pale as he read it;
crumpled it in his hand, and threw it down on the table. "By
G--d! it's a lie!" he exclaimed furiously.

The guests rose in confusion. Mrs. Drumblade, finding the letter
within her reach, coolly possessed herself of it; recognized her
mother's handwriting; and read these lines:

"I have only now succeeded in persuading your father to let me
write to you. For God's sake, break off your marriage at any
sacrifice. Your father has heard, on unanswerable authority, that
Miss Isabel Miller left her situation in Lady Lydiard's house on
suspicion of theft."

While his sister was reading this letter, Hardyman had made his
way to Isabel's chair. "I must speak to you, directly," he
whispered. "Come away with me!" He turned, as he took her arm,
and looked at the table. "Where is my letter?" he asked. Mrs.
Drumblade handed it to him, dexterously crumpled up again as she
had found it. "No bad news, dear Alfred, I hope?" she said, in
her most affectionate manner. Hardyman snatched the letter from
her, without answering, and led Isabel out of the tent.

"Read that!" he said, when they were alone. "And tell me at once
whether it's true or false."

Isabel read the letter. For a moment the shock of the discovery
held her speechless. She recovered herself, and returned the
letter.

"It is true," she answered.

Hardyman staggered back as if she had shot him.

"True that you are guilty?" he asked.

"No; I am innocent. Everybody who knows me believes in my
innocence. It is true the appearances were against me. They are
against me still." Having said this, she waited, quietly and
firmly, for his next words.

He passed his hand over his forehead with a sigh of relief. "It's
bad enough as it is," he said, speaking quietly on his side. "But
the remedy for it is plain enough. Come back to the tent."

She never moved. "Why?" she asked.

"Do you suppose I don't believe in your innocence too?" he
answered. "The one way of setting you right with the world now is
for me to make you my wife, in spite of the appearances that
point to you. I'm too fond of you, Isabel, to give you up. Come
back with me, and I will announce our marriage to my friends."

She took his hand, and kissed it. "It is generous and good of
you," she said; "but it must not be."

He took a step nearer to her. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"It was against my will," she pursued, "that my aunt concealed
the truth from you. I did wrong to consent to it, I will do wrong
no more. Your mother is right, Alfred. After what has happened, I
am not fit to be your wife until my innocence is proved. It is
not proved yet."

The angry color began to rise in his face once more. "Take care,"
he said; "I am not in a humor to be trifled with."

"I am not trifling with you," she answered, in low, sad tones.

"You really mean what you say?"

"I mean it."

"Don't be obstinate, Isabel. Take time to consider."

"You are very kind, Alfred. My duty is plain to me. I will marry
you--if you still wish it--when my good name is restored to me.
Not before."

He laid one hand on her arm, and pointed with the other to the
guests in the distance, all leaving the tent on the way to their
carriages.

"You r good name will be restored to you," he said, "on the day
when I make you my wife. The worst enemy you have cannot
associate _my_ name with a suspicion of theft. Remember that and
think a little before you decide. You see those people there. If
you don't change your mind by the time they have got to the
cottage, it's good-by between us, and good-by forever. I refuse
to wait for you; I refuse to accept a conditional engagement.
Wait, and think. They're walking slowly; you have got some
minutes more."

He still held her arm, watching the guests as they gradually
receded from view. It was not until they had all collected in a
group outside the cottage door that he spoke himself, or that he
permitted Isabel to speak again.

"Now," he said, "you have had your time to get cool. Will you
take my arm, and join those people with me? or will you say
good-by forever?"

"Forgive me, Alfred!" she began, gently. "I cannot consent, in
justice to you, to shelter myself behind your name. It is the
name of your family; and they have a right to expect that you
will not degrade it--"

"I want a plain answer," he interposed sternly. "Which is it?
Yes, or No?"

She looked at him with sad compassionate eyes. Her voice was firm
as she answered him in one word as he had desired. The word was--
"No."

Without speaking to her, without even looking at her, he turned
and walked back to the cottage.

Making his way silently through the group of visitors--every one
of whom had been informed of what had happened by his
sister--with his head down and his lips fast closed, he entered
the parlor and rang the bell which communicated with his
foreman's rooms at the stables.

"You know that I am going abroad on business?" he said, when the
man appeared.

"Yes, sir."

"I am going to-day--going by the night train to Dover. Order the
horse to be put to instantly in the dogcart. Is there anything
wanted before I am off?"

The inexorable necessities of business asserted their claims
through the obedient medium of the foreman. Chafing at the delay,
Hardyman was obliged to sit at his desk, signing checks and
passing accounts, with the dogcart waiting in the stable yard.

A knock at the door startled him in the middle of his work. "Come
in," he called out sharply.

He looked up, expecting to see one of the guests or one of the
servants. It was Moody who entered the room. Hardyman laid down
his pen, and fixed his eyes sternly on the man who had dared to
interrupt him.

"What the devil do _you_ want?" he asked.

"I have seen Miss Isabel, and spoken with her," Moody replied.
"Mr. Hardyman, I believe it is in your power to set this matter
right. For the young lady's sake, sir, you must not leave England
without doing it."

Hardyman turned to his foreman. "Is this fellow mad or drunk?" he
asked.

Moody proceeded as calmly and as resolutely as if those words had
not been spoken. "I apologize for my intrusion, sir. I will
trouble you with no explanations. I will only ask one question.
Have you a memorandum of the number of that five-hundred pound
note you paid away in France?"

Hardyman lost all control over himself.

"You scoundrel!" he cried, "have you been prying into my private
affairs? Is it _your_ business to know what I did in France?"

"Is it _your_ vengeance on a woman to refuse to tell her the
number of a bank-note?" Moody rejoined, firmly.

That answer forced its way, through Hardyman's anger, to
Hardyman's sense of honor. He rose and advanced to Moody. For a
moment the two men faced each other in silence. "You're a bold
fellow," said Hardyman, with a sudden change from anger to irony.
"I'll do the lady justice. I'll look at my pocketbook."

He put his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat; he searched
his other pockets; he turned over the objects on his
writing-table. The book was gone.

Moody watched him with a feeling of despair. "Oh! Mr. Hardyman,
don't say you have lost your pocketbook!"

He sat down again at his desk, with sullen submission to the new
disaster. "All I can say is you're at liberty to look for it," he
replied. "I must have dropped it somewhere." He turned
impatiently to the foreman, "Now then! What is the next check
wanted? I shall go mad if I wait in this damned place much
longer!"

Moody left him, and found his way to the servants' offices. "Mr.
Hardyman has lost his pocketbook," he said. "Look for it, indoors
and out--on the lawn, and in the tent. Ten pounds reward for the
man who finds it!"

Servants and waiters instantly dispersed, eager for the promised
reward. The men who pursued the search outside the cottage
divided their forces. Some of them examined the lawn and the
flower-beds. Others went straight to the empty tent. These last
were too completely absorbed in pursuing the object in view to
notice that they disturbed a dog, eating a stolen lunch of his
own from the morsels left on the plates. The dog slunk away under
the canvas when the men came in, waited in hiding until they had
gone, then returned to the tent, and went on with his luncheon.

Moody hastened back to the part of the grounds (close to the
shrubbery) in which Isabel was waiting his return.

She looked at him, while he was telling her of his interview with
Hardyman, with an expression in her eyes which he had never seen
in them before--an expression which set his heart beating wildly,
and made him break off in his narrative before he had reached the
end.

"I understand," she said quietly, as he stopped in confusion.
"You have made one more sacrifice to my welfare. Robert! I
believe you are the noblest man that ever breathed the breath of
life!"

His eyes sank before hers; he blushed like a boy. "I have done
nothing for you yet," he said. "Don't despair of the future, if
the pocketbook should not be found. I know who the man is who
received the bank note; and I have only to find him to decide the
question whether it _is_ the stolen note or not."

She smiled sadly as his enthusiasm. "Are you going back to Mr.
Sharon to help you?" she asked. "That trick he played me has
destroyed _my_ belief in him. He no more knows than I do who the
thief really is."

"You are mistaken, Isabel. He knows--and I know." He stopped
there, and made a sign to her to be silent. One of the servants
was approaching them.

"Is the pocketbook found?" Moody asked.

"No, sir."

"Has Mr. Hardyman left the cottage?"

"He has just gone, sir. Have you any further instructions to give
us?"

"No. There is my address in London, if the pocketbook should be
found."

The man took the card that was handed to him and retired. Moody
offered his arm to Isabel. "I am at your service," he said, "when
you wish to return to your aunt."

They had advanced nearly as far as the tent, on their way out of
the grounds, when they were met by a gentleman walking towards
them from the cottage. He was a stranger to Isabel. Moody
immediately recognized him as Mr. Felix Sweetsir.

"Ha! our good Moody!" cried Felix. "Enviable man! you look
younger than ever." He took off his hat to Isabel; his bright
restless eyes suddenly became quiet as they rested on her. "Have
I the honor of addressing the future Mrs. Hardyman? May I offer
my best congratulations? What has become of our friend Alfred?"

Moody answered for Isabel. "If you will make inquiries at the
cottage, sir," he said, "you will find that you are mistaken, to
say the least of it, in addressing your questions to this young
lady."

Felix took off his hat again--with the most becoming appearance
of surprise and distress.

"Something wrong, I fear?" he said, addressing Isabel. "I am,
indeed, ashamed if I have ignorantly given you a moment's pain.
Pray accept my most sincere apologies. I have only this instant
arrived; my health would not allow me to be present at the
luncheon. Permit me to express the earnest hope that matters may
be set right to the satisfaction of all parties. Good-afternoon!"

He bowed with elaborate courtesy, and turned back to the cottage.

"Who is that?" Isabel asked.

"Lady Lydiard's nephew, Mr. Felix Sweetsir," Moody answered, with
a sudden sternness of tone, and a sudden coldness of manner,
which surprised Isabel.

"You don't like him?" she said.

As she spoke, Fe lix stopped to give audience to one of the
grooms, who had apparently been sent with a message to him. He
turned so that his face was once more visible to Isabel. Moody
pressed her hand significantly as it rested on his arm.

"Look well at that man," he whispered. "It's time to warn you.
Mr. Felix Sweetsir is the worst enemy you have!"

Isabel heard him in speechless astonishment. He went on in tones
that trembled with suppressed emotion.

"You doubt if Sharon knows the thief. You doubt if I know the
thief. Isabel! as certainly as the heaven is above us, there
stands the wretch who stole the bank-note!"

She drew her hand out of his arm with a cry of terror. She looked
at him as if she doubted whether he was in his right mind.

He took her hand, and waited a moment trying to compose himself.

"Listen to me," he said. "At the first consultation I had with
Sharon he gave this advice to Mr. Troy and to me. He said,
'Suspect the very last person on whom suspicion could possibly
fall.' Those words, taken with the questions he had asked before
he pronounced his opinion, struck through me as if he had struck
me with a knife. I instantly suspected Lady Lydiard's nephew.
Wait! From that time to this I have said nothing of my suspicion
to any living soul. I knew in my own heart that it took its rise
in the inveterate dislike that I have always felt for Mr.
Sweetsir, and I distrusted it accordingly. But I went back to
Sharon, for all that, and put the case into his hands. His
investigations informed me that Mr. Sweetsir owed 'debts of
honor' (as gentlemen call them), incurred through lost bets, to a
large number of persons, and among them a bet of five hundred
pounds lost to Mr. Hardyman. Further inquiries showed that Mr.
Hardyman had taken the lead in declaring that he would post Mr.
Sweetsir as a defaulter, and have him turned out of his clubs,
and turned out of the betting-ring. Ruin stared him in the face
if he failed to pay his debt to Mr. Hardyman on the last day left
to him--the day after the note was lost. On that very morning,
Lady Lydiard, speaking to me of her nephew's visit to her, said,
'If I had given him an opportunity of speaking, Felix would have
borrowed money of me; I saw it in his face.' One moment more,
Isabel. I am not only certain that Mr. Sweetsir took the
five-hundred pound note out of the open letter, I am firmly
persuaded that he is the man who told Lord Rotherfield of the
circumstances under which you left Lady Lydiard's house. Your
marriage to Mr. Hardyman might have put you in a position to
detect the theft. You, not I, might, in that case, have
discovered from your husband that the stolen note was the note
with which Mr. Sweetsir paid his debt. He came here, you may
depend on it, to make sure that he had succeeded in destroying
your prospects. A more depraved villain at heart than that man
never swung from a gallows!"

He checked himself at those words. The shock of the disclosure,
the passion and vehemence with which he spoke, overwhelmed
Isabel. She trembled like a frightened child.

While he was still trying to soothe and reassure her, a low
whining made itself heard at her feet. They looked down, and saw
Tommie. Finding himself noticed at last, he expressed his sense
of relief by a bark. Something dropped out of his mouth. As Moody
stooped to pick it up, the dog ran to Isabel and pushed his head
against her feet, as his way was when he expected to have the
handkerchief thrown over him, preparatory to one of those games
at hide-and-seek which have been already mentioned. Isabel put
out her hand to caress him, when she was stopped by a cry from
Moody. It was _his_ turn to tremble now. His voice faltered as he
said the words, "The dog has found the pocketbook!"

He opened the book with shaking hands. A betting-book was bound
up in it, with the customary calendar. He turned to the date of
the day after the robbery.

There was the entry: "Felix Sweetsir. Paid 500 pounds. Note
numbered, N 8, 70564; dated 15th May, 1875."

Moody took from his waistcoat pocket his own memorandum of the
number of the lost bank-note. "Read it Isabel," he said. "I won't
trust my memory."

She read it. The number and date of the note entered in the
pocketbook exactly corresponded with the number and date of the
note that Lady Lydiard had placed in her letter.

Moody handed the pocketbook to Isabel. "There is the proof of
your innocence," he said, "thanks to the dog! Will you write and
tell Mr. Hardyman what has happened?" he asked, with his head
down and his eyes on the ground.

She answered him, with the bright color suddenly flowing over her
face.

"_You_ shall write to him," she said, "when the time comes."

"What time?" he asked.

She threw her arms round his neck, and hid her face on his bosom.

"The time," she whispered, "when I am your wife."

A low growl from Tommie reminded them that he too had some claim
to be noticed.

Isabel dropped on her knees, and saluted her old playfellow with
the heartiest kisses she had ever given him since the day when
their acquaintance began. "You darling!" she said, as she put him
down again, "what can I do to reward you?"

Tommie rolled over on his back--more slowly than usual, in
consequence of his luncheon in the tent. He elevated his four
paws in the air and looked lazily at Isabel out of his bright
brown eyes. If ever a dog's look spoke yet, Tommie's look said,
"I have eaten too much; rub my stomach."


POSTSCRIPT.

Persons of a speculative turn of mind are informed that the
following document is for sale, and are requested to mention what
sum they will give for it.

"IOU, Lady Lydiard, five hundred pounds (L500), Felix Sweetsir."

Her Ladyship became possessed of this pecuniary remittance under
circumstances which surround it with a halo of romantic interest.
It was the last communication she was destined to receive from
her accomplished nephew. There was a Note attached to it, which
cannot fail to enhance its value in the estimation of all
right-minded persons who assist the circulation of paper money.

The lines that follow are strictly confidential:

"Note.--Our excellent Moody informs me, my dear aunt, that you
have decided (against his advice) on 'refusing to prosecute.' I
have not the slightest idea of what he means; but I am very much
obliged to him, nevertheless, for reminding me of a circumstance
which is of some interest to yourself personally.

"I am on the point of retiring to the Continent in search of
health. One generally forgets something important when one starts
on a journey. Before Moody called, I had entirely forgotten to
mention that I had the pleasure of borrowing five hundred pounds
of you some little time since.

"On the occasion to which I refer, your language and manner
suggested that you would not lend me the money if I asked for it.
Obviously, the only course left was to take it without asking. I
took it while Moody was gone to get some curacoa; and I returned
to the picture-gallery in time to receive that delicious liqueur
from the footman's hands.

"You will naturally ask why I found it necessary to supply myself
(if I may borrow an expression from the language of State
finance) with this 'forced loan.' I was actuated by motives which
I think do me honor. My position at the time was critical in the
extreme. My credit with the money-lenders was at an end; my
friends had all turned their backs on me. I must either take the
money or disgrace my family. If there is a man living who is
sincerely attached to his family, I am that man. I took the
money.

"Conceive your position as my aunt (I say nothing of myself), if
I had adopted the other alternative. Turned out of the Jockey
Club, turned out of Tattersalls', turned out of the betting-ring;
in short, posted publicly as a defaulter before the noblest
institution in England, the Turf--and all for want of five
hundred pounds to stop the mouth of the greatest brute I know of,
Alfred Hardyman! Let me not harrow your feelings (and mine) by
dwelling on it. Dear and admirable woman! To you belongs the
honor of saving the credit of the family; I can claim nothing but
the inferior merit of having offered you the opportunity.

"My IOU, it is needless to say, accompanies these lines. Can I do
anything for you abroad?-- F. S."


To this it is only necessary to add (first) that Moody was
perfectly right in believing F. S. to be the person who informed
Hardyman's father of Isabel's position when she left Lady
Lydiard's house; and (secondly) that Felix did really forward Mr.
Troy's narrative of the theft to the French police, altering
nothing in it but the number of the lost bank-note.


What is there left to write about? Nothing is left--but to say
good-by (very sorrowfully on the writer's part) to the Persons of
the Story.

Good-by to Miss Pink--who will regret to her dying day that
Isabel's answer to Hardyman was No.

Good-by to Lady Lydiard--who differs with Miss Pink, and would
have regretted it, to _her_ dying day, if the answer had been
Yes.

Good-by to Moody and Isabel--whose history has closed with the
closing of the clergyman's book on their wedding-day.

Good-by to Hardyman--who has sold his farm and his horses, and
has begun a new life among the famous fast trotters of America.

Good-by to Old Sharon--who, a martyr to his promise, brushed his
hair and washed his face in honor of Moody's marriage; and
catching a severe cold as the necessary consequence, declared, in
the intervals of sneezing, that he would "never do it again."

And last, not least, good-by to Tommie? No. The writer gave
Tommie his dinner not half an hour since, and is too fond of him
to say good-by.