e. She noted how
alert it became, but he said nothing.

"Isabel refused to see him."

He wheeled round and faced her with pain and surprise.

"Refused to see him!"

"She has told me since that she never intends to see him."

"Never intends to see Rowan again!" he repeated the incredible
words, "not see Rowan again!"

"She says we are to drop him from the list of our acquaintances."

"Ah!" he cried with impetuous sadness, "they must not quarrel!
They _must_ not!"

"But they _have_ quarrelled," she replied, revealing her own
anxiety. "Now they must be reconciled. That is why I come to
you. I am Isabel's guardian; you were Rowan's. Each of us wishes
this marriage. Isabel loves Rowan. I know that; therefore it is
not her fault. Therefore it is Rowan's fault. Therefore he has
said something or he has done something to offend her deeply.
Therefore if you do not know what this Is, you must find out. And
you must come and tell me. May I depend upon you?"

He had become grave. At length he said: "I shall go straight to
Rowan and ask him."

"No!" she cried, laying her hand heavily on his arm, "Isabel bound
me to secrecy. She does not wish this to be known."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, angry at being entrapped into a broken
confidence, "then Miss Isabel binds me also: I shall honor her
wish," and he rose.

She kept her seat but yawned so that he might notice it. "You are
not going?"

"Yes, I am going. I have stayed too long already. Good night!
Good night!" He spoke curtly over his shoulders as he hurried down
the steps.

She had forgotten him before he reached the street, having no need
just then to keep him longer in mind. She had threshed out the one
grain of wheat, the single compact little truth, that she wanted.
This was the certainty that Judge Morris, who was the old family
lawyer of the Merediths, and had been Rowan's guardian, and had
indeed known him intimately from childhood, was in ignorance of any
reason for the present trouble; otherwise he would not have said
that he should go to Rowan and ask the explanation. She knew him
to be incapable of duplicity; in truth she rather despised him
because he had never cultivated a taste for the delights and
resources of hypocrisy.

Her next step must be to talk at once with the other person vitally
interested--Rowan's mother. She felt no especial admiration for
that grave, earnest, and rather sombre lady; but neither did she
feel admiration