“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 onme?”
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 thereisanother 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.
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. Youhavesomething 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 deceiveme. 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 makehimspeak 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?”
“Iwas 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 believeI mentioned that a valuable inclosure was in the letter.”
“You believe?” Mr. Troy repeated. “Can’t you speak more positively than that?”
“Ican 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 doesheknow 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.
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 believedthat.
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 thatyoudon’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.