you take compassion on me, and give me a seat home?"

She acquiesced. She could not do otherwise. The footman sprang from
behind the door, and Francis Levison took his place beside Lady Isabel.
"Take the high road," he put out his head to say to the coachman; and
the man touched his hat--which high road would cause them to pass Mr.
Hare's.

"I did not know you," she began, gathering herself into her own corner.
"What ugly thing is that you have on? It is like a disguise."

He was taking off the "ugly thing" as she spoke and began to twirl it
round his hand. "Disguise? Oh, no; I have no creditors in the immediate
neighborhood of East Lynne."

False as ever it was worn as a disguise and he knew it.

"Is Mr. Carlyle at home?" she inquired.

"No." Then, after a pause--"I expect he is more agreeably engaged."

The tone, a most significant one, brought the tingling blood to the
cheeks of Lady Isabel. She wished to preserve a dignified silence, and
did for a few moments; but the jealous question broke out,--

"Engaged in what manner?"

"As I came by Hare's house just now, I saw two people, a gentleman and
a young lady, coupled lovingly together, enjoying a _tete-a-tete_ by
moonlight. Unless I am mistaken, he was the favored individual whom you
call lord and master."

Lady Isabel almost gnashed her teeth; the jealous doubts which had been
tormenting her all the evening were confirmed. That the man whom she
hated--yes, in her blind anger, she hated him then--should so impose
upon her, should excuse himself by lies, lies base and false as he was,
from accompanying her out, on purpose to pass the hours with Barbara
Hare! Had she been alone in the carriage, a torrent of passion had
probably escaped her.

She leaned back, panting in her emotion, but hiding it from Captain
Levison. As they came opposite to Justice Hare's she deliberately bent
forward and scanned the garden with eager eyes.

There, in the bright moonlight, all too bright and clear, slowly paced
arm in arm, and drawn close to each other, her husband and Barbara Hare.
With a choking sob that could no longer be controlled or hidden, Lady
Isabel sunk back again.

He, that bold, bad man, dared to put his arm around her, to draw her to
his side; to whisper that _his_ love was left to her, if another's was
withdrawn. She was most assuredly out of her senses that night, or she
never would have listened.

A jealous woman is mad; an outraged woman is doubly mad