y he seemed to be in his new home with such nice ladies around, who
it was plain, thought so much of him, and so forth. This garrulity
Isobel took as an intended hint and ceased from her contemplated
queries. When some months later Mr. Knight brought her Godfrey's
epistle which announced his inheritance, needless to say, everything
became plain as a pikestaff to her experienced intelligence.

So it came about that two young people, who adored each other, were
estranged for a considerable length of time. For Isobel wrote no more
letters, and the proud and outraged Godfrey would rather have died than
attempt to open a correspondence--after what he had seen in that London
square. It is true that in his brief epistles home, which were all
addressed to his father, since Mrs. Parsons was what is called "a poor
scholar," he did try in a roundabout way to learn something about
Isobel, but these inquiries, for reasons of his own, his parent
completely ignored. In short, she might have been dead for all that
Godfrey heard of her, as he believed that she was dead--to him.

Meanwhile, Isobel had other things to occupy her. Her mother, as she
had said in the letter which Mr. Knight's sense of duty compelled him
to steal, became very ill with lung trouble. The doctors announced that
she ought to be taken to Egypt or some other warm climate, such as
Algeria, for the winter months. Sir John would hear nothing of the
sort. For years past he had chosen to consider that his wife was
hypochondriacal, and all the medical opinions in London would not have
induced him to change that view. The fact was, as may be guessed, that
it did not suit him to leave England, and that for sundry reasons which
need not be detailed, he did not wish that Isobel should accompany her
mother to what he called "foreign parts." In his secret heart he
reflected that if Lady Jane died, well, she died, and while heaven
gained a saint, earth, or at any rate, Sir John Blake, would be no
loser. She had played her part in his life, there was nothing more to
be made of her either as a woman as a social asset. What would it
matter if one more pale, uninteresting lady of title joined the
majority?

Isobel had one of her stormy interviews with Sir John upon this matter
of her mother's health.

"She ought to go abroad," she said.

"Who told you that?" asked her father.

"The doctors. I waited for them and asked them."

"Then you had no business to do so. You are an i