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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Lady's Money, by Wilkie Collins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Lady's Money
+
+Author: Wilkie Collins
+
+Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1628]
+[Last Updated: September 10, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LADY'S MONEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Rusk and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+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 age. 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-shaven 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 lithe 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?"
+
+"Next 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
+must not 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. She 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 object 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 question, 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 Morden.
+
+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 gentlewoman"; 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, and 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 seen 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 conversation 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 did."
+
+"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 I?
+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 his 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
+Lavinia 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 forward 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 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 the 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.
+If 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
+watch-chain. 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.
+
+"Your 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, Felix 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Lady's Money, by Wilkie Collins
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