have got some
minutes more."

He still held her arm, watching the guests as they gradually receded
from view. It was not until they had all collected in a group outside
the cottage door that he spoke himself, or that he permitted Isabel to
speak again.

"Now," he said, "you have had your time to get cool. Will you take my
arm, and join those people with me? or will you say good-by forever?"

"Forgive me, Alfred!" she began, gently. "I cannot consent, in justice
to you, to shelter myself behind your name. It is the name of your
family; and they have a right to expect that you will not degrade it--"

"I want a plain answer," he interposed sternly. "Which is it? Yes, or
No?"

She looked at him with sad compassionate eyes. Her voice was firm as she
answered him in one word as he had desired. The word was--

"No."

Without speaking to her, without even looking at her, he turned and
walked back to the cottage.

Making his way silently through the group of visitors--every one of whom
had been informed of what had happened by his sister--with his head down
and his lips fast closed, he entered the parlor and rang the bell which
communicated with his foreman's rooms at the stables.

"You know that I am going abroad on business?" he said, when the man
appeared.

"Yes, sir."

"I am going to-day--going by the night train to Dover. Order the horse
to be put to instantly in the dogcart. Is there anything wanted before I
am off?"

The inexorable necessities of business asserted their claims through
the obedient medium of the foreman. Chafing at the delay, Hardyman was
obliged to sit at his desk, signing checks and passing accounts, with
the dogcart waiting in the stable yard.

A knock at the door startled him in the middle of his work. "Come in,"
he called out sharply.

He looked up, expecting to see one of the guests or one of the servants.
It was Moody who entered the room. Hardyman laid down his pen, and fixed
his eyes sternly on the man who had dared to interrupt him.

"What the devil do _you_ want?" he asked.

"I have seen Miss Isabel, and spoken with her," Moody replied. "Mr.
Hardyman, I believe it is in your power to set this matter right. For
the young lady's sake, sir, you must not leave England without doing
it."

Hardyman turned to his foreman. "Is this fellow mad or drunk?" he asked.

Moody proceeded as calmly and as resolutely as if those words had not
been spoken. "I apologize for my intrusion, s