‘I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing,’ Miss Stackpole answered. ‘But I don’t believe that; he’s not a man to do nothing. He is a man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he’ll always do something, and whatever he does will always be right.’

‘I quite believe that.’ Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it touched the girl, all the same, to hear this declaration.

‘Ah, you do care for him!’ her visitor rang out.

‘Whatever he does will always be right,’ Isabel repeated. ‘When a man’s of that infallible mould what does it matter to him what one feels?’

‘It may not matter to him, but it matters to one’s self.’

‘Ah, what it matters to me—that’s not what we’re discussing,’ said Isabel with a cold smile.

This time her companion was grave. ‘Well, I don’t care; you have changed. You’re not the girl you were a few short weeks ago, and Mr Goodwood will see it. I expect him here any day.’

‘I hope he’ll hate me then,’ said Isabel.

‘I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it.’

To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the alarm given her by Henrietta’s intimation that Casper Goodwood would present himself at Gardencourt. She pretended to herself, however, that she thought the event impossible, and, later, she communicated her disbelief to her friend. For the next forty-eight hours, nevertheless, she stood prepared to hear the young man’s name announced. The feeling pressed upon her; it made the air sultry, as if there were to be a change of weather; and the weather, socially speaking, had been so agreeable during Isabel’s stay at Gardencourt that any change would be for the worse. Her suspense indeed was dissipated the second day. She had walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie, and after strolling about for some time, in a manner at once listless and restless, had seated herself on a garden-bench, within sight of the house, beneath a spreading beech, where, in a white dress ornamented with black ribbons,² she formed among the flickering shadows a graceful and harmonious image. She entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier, as to whom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible—as impartially as Bunchie’s own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow. But she was notified for the first time, on this occasion, of the finite character of Bunchie’s intellect; hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she would do well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle’s library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman’s collection should be without, she sat motionless and empty-handed, her eyes bent on the cool green turf of the lawn. Her meditations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a servant who handed her a letter. The letter bore the London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew—that came into her vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the writer’s voice or his face. This document proved short and may be given entire.

My dear Miss Archer—I don’t know whether you will have heard of my coming to England, but even if you have not it will scarcely be a surprise to you. You will remember that when you gave me my dismissal at Albany, three months ago, I did not accept it. I protested against it. You in fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the right on my side. I had come to see you with the hope that you would let me bring you over to my conviction; my reasons for entertaining this hope had been of the best. But you disappointed it; I found you changed, and you were able to give me no reason for the change. You admitted that you were unreasonable, and it was the only concession you would make; but it was a very cheap one, because that’s not your character. No, you are not, and you never will be,