ealized that she must take
steps at once to discard Rowan as the duty of her social position.
And here tangible perplexities instantly wove themselves across her
path. Conscience had promptly arraigned him at the altar of
religion. It was easy to condemn him there. And no one had the
right to question that arraignment and that condemnation. But
public severance of all relations with him in her social world--how
should she accomplish that and withhold her justification?

Her own kindred would wish to understand the reason. The branches
of these scattered far and near were prominent each in its sphere,
and all were intimately bound together by the one passion of
clannish allegiance to the family past. She knew that Rowan's
attentions had continued so long and had been so marked, that
her grandmother had accepted marriage between them as a foregone
conclusion, and in letters had disseminated these prophecies
through the family connection. Other letters had even come back
to Isabel, containing evidence only too plain that Rowan had
been discussed and accepted in domestic councils. Against all
inward protests of delicacy, she had been forced to receive
congratulations that in this marriage she would preserve the
traditions of the family by bringing into it a man of good blood
and of unspotted name; the two idols of all the far separated
hearthstones.

To the pride of all these relatives she added her own pride--the
highest. She was the last of the women in the direct line yet
unwedded, and she was sensitive that her choice should not in honor
and in worth fall short of the alliances that had preceded hers.
Involved in this sense of pride she felt that she owed a duty to
the generations who had borne her family name in this country and
to the still earlier generations who had given it distinction in
England--land of her womanly ideals. To discard now without a word
of explanation the man whose suit she had long been understood to
favor would create wide disappointment and provoke keen question.

Further difficulties confronted her from Rowan's side. His own
family and kindred were people strong and not to be trifled with,
proud and conservative like her own. Corresponding resentments
would be aroused among them, questions would be asked that had no
answers. She felt that her life in its most private and sacred
relation would be publicly arraigned and have open judgment passed
upon it by conflicting interests a