ff; they
would like a finger in a pie with such property as that."

"Shall I see Sir Peter Levison for you?"

"_Will_ you?" returned Captain Levison, his dark eyes lighting up.

"If you like as your friend, you understand; not as your solicitor; that
I decline. I have a slight knowledge of Sir Peter; my father was well
acquainted with him; and if I can render you any little service, I shall
be happy, in return for your kind attention to my wife. I cannot promise
to see him for those two or three weeks, though," resumed Mr. Carlyle,
"for we are terribly busy. I never was so driven; but for being so I
should stay here with my wife."

Francis Levison expressed his gratitude, and the prospect, however
remote, of being enabled to return to England increased his spirits to
exultation. Whilst they continued to converse, Lady Isabel sat at the
window in the adjoining room, listlessly looking out on the crowds of
French who were crowding to and from the port in their Sunday holiday
attire. Looking at them with her eyes, not with her senses--her
senses were holding commune with herself, and it was not altogether
satisfactory--she was aware that a sensation all too warm, a feeling
of attraction toward Francis Levison, was working within her. Not a
voluntary one; she could no more repress it than she could repress
her own sense of being; and, mixed with it, was the stern voice of
conscience, overwhelming her with the most lively terror. She would have
given all she possessed to be able to overcome it. She would have
given half the years of her future life to separate herself at once and
forever from the man.

But do not mistake the word terror, or suppose that Lady Isabel Carlyle
applied it here in the vulgar acceptation of the term. She did not fear
for herself; none could be more conscious of self-rectitude of principle
and conduct; and she would have believed it as impossible for her ever
to forsake her duty as a wife, a gentlewoman, and a Christian, as for
the sun to turn round from west to east. That was not the fear which
possessed her; it had never presented itself to her mind; what she did
fear was, that further companionship with Francis Levison might augment
the sentiments she entertained for him to a height that her life,
for perhaps years to come, would be one of unhappiness, a sort of
concealment; and, more than all, she shrank form the consciousness of
the bitter wrong that these sentiments cast upon her husband.