第96章

Sir Francis half turned to where she pointed, and saw an infant's cradle by the side of the bed. He did not take the trouble to look at it.

"I am the representative now of an ancient and respected baronetcy," he resumed, in a tone as of apology for his previous heartless words, "and to make you my wife would so offend all my family, that--"

"Stay," interrupted Lady Isabel, "you need not trouble yourself to find needless excuses. Had you taken this journey for the purpose of making me your wife, were you to propose to do so this day, and bring a clergyman into the room to perform the ceremony, it would be futile.

The injury to the child can never be repaired; and, for myself, I cannot imagine any fate in life worse than being compelled to pass it with you."

"If you have taken this aversion to me, it cannot be helped," he coldly said, inwardly congratulating himself, let us not doubt, at being spared the work of trouble he had anticipated. "You made commotion enough once about me making you reparation."

She shook her head.

"All the reparation in your power to make--all the reparation that the whole world can invent could not undo my sin. It and the effects must lie upon me forever."

"Oh--sin!" was the derisive exclamation. "You ladies should think of that beforehand."

"Yes," she sadly answered. "May heaven help all to do so who may be tempted as I was."

"If you mean that as a reproach to me, it's rather out of place," chafed Sir Francis, whose fits of ill-temper were under no control, and who never, when in them, cared what he said to outrage the feelings of another. "The temptation to sin, as you call it, lay not in my persuasions half so much as in your jealous anger toward your husband."

"Quite true," was her reply.

"And I believe you were on the wrong scent, Isabel--if it will be any satisfaction to you to hear it. Since we are mutually on this complimentary discourse, it is of no consequence to smooth over facts."

"I do not understand what you would imply," she said, drawing her shawl round her with a fresh shiver. "How on the wrong scent?"

"With regard to your husband and that Hare girl. You were blindly, outrageously jealous of him."

"Go on."

"And I say I think you are on the wrong scent. I do not believe Mr. Carlyle ever thought of the girl--in that way."

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"They had a secret between them--not of love--a secret of business; and those interviews they had together, her dancing attendance upon him perpetually, related to that, and that alone."

Her face was more flushed than it had been throughout the interview.

He spoke quietly now, quite in an equal tone of reasoning; it was his way when the ill-temper was upon him: and the calmer he spoke, the more cutting were his words. He /need/ not have told her this.

"What was the secret?" she inquired, in a low tone.

"Nay, I can't explain all; they did not take me into their confidence.

They did not even take you; better, perhaps that they had though, as things have turned out, or seem to be turning. There's some disreputable secret attaching to the Hare family, and Carlyle was acting in it, under the rose, for Mrs. Hare. She could not seek out Carlyle herself, so she sent the young lady. That's all I know."

"How did you know it?"

"I had reason to think so."

"What reason? I must request you to tell me."

"I overheard scraps of their conversation now and then in those meetings, and so gathered my information."

"You told a different tale to me, Sir Francis," was her remark, as she turned her indignant eyes toward him.

Sir Francis laughed.

"All stratagems are fair in love and war."

She dared not immediately trust herself to reply, and a silence ensued. Sir Francis broke it, pointing with his left thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the cradle.

"What have you named that young article there?"

"The name which ought to have been his by inheritance--'Francis Levison,' " was her icy answer.

"Let's see--how old is he now?"

"He was born on the last day of August."

Sir Francis threw up his arms and stretched himself, as if a fit of idleness had overtaken him; then advanced to the cradle and pulled down the clothes.

"Who is he like, Isabel? My handsome self?"

"Were he like you in spirit, I would pray that he might die ere he could speak, or think!" she burst forth. And then remembering the resolution marked out for herself, subsided outwardly into calmness again.

"What else?" retorted Sir Francis. "You know my disposition pretty well by this time, Isabel, and may be sure that if you deal out small change to me, you will get it back again with interest."

She made no reply. Sir Francis put the clothes back over the sleeping child, returned to the fire, and stood a few moments with his back to it.

"Is my room prepared for me, do you know?" he presently asked.

"No, it is not," she quietly rejoined. "These apartments are mine now; they have been transferred into my name, and they can never again afford you accommodation. Will you be so obliging--I am not strong--as to hand me that writing case?"

Sir Francis walked to the table she indicated, which was at the far end of the great barn of a room, and taking the writing-case from it, gave it to her.