ay?"

"No, really, I cannot possibly; I have no time to go anywhere."

"Take care you don't work too hard, and have to give up altogether. You
look as if you were overdoing it. Too much of a good thing is good for
nothing, you know. Come when you can--if not to-day, I shall be always
glad to see you."

"What object can he have in speaking thus of Isabel?" Everard asked
himself when Louis was gone--his beautiful and beloved Isabel, the charm
of his existence, yet the torture of his life--(for was it not torture
to be forever dwelling on her perfections, only to come back to the same
undeniable fact that she had refused him--that she either could not, or
would not, be his)--and now to hear _her_, the personification of his
own ideal, spoken of as an accomplished actress and deceitful coquette,
was almost more than he could endure. Then he asked himself what he had
gained by his constant and excessive study: had it caused him to forget
her? no, he could not forget she seemed ever with him in all her beauty,
gentleness, and truth. He would win her yet, he told himself, and then
owned he was a fool to indulge such thoughts, and determined to study
harder still than ever, to prevent the possibility of his thoughts
recurring so often to Isabel. Nevertheless, he would believe nothing
against her--nothing.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Louis, I wish you would look at baby before you go; I do not think she
is well to-night."

"What is the matter now? You are always thinking she is ill: she seemed
well enough this morning."

"I don't know. She is restless and uneasy; I wish you would come."

"Of course I will, but I am in a great hurry just now; Mrs. Headley has
sent for me, and old Mr. Growl has another attack. I must go to the
people in the office now, but I will come up to baby before I start."

"Had you not better see baby first? Perhaps you might forget, with so
many people to attend to."

"Forget? Not I. Why, Natalie, how do you think I should ever get on if I
had no better memory than that?"

But he did forget, and was gone when Natalie again sought him.
"I thought it would be so," she sighed. Baby became more and more
uneasy, and moaned and fretted in her sleep. Natalie knelt beside the
bed, and tried to soothe her darling, thinking sadly of the long hours
that would elapse before Louis's return, but all her efforts were in
vain. Izzie did not wake or cry, but this only alarmed Natalie the more.
The deadly palor of