teady mouth and low laugh whom Anthony had described to
her.

Lady Maxwell posted upon the gatehouse:

"Sir Nicholas fears that a _friend_ is in sore trouble; he hopes he may
not _yield_."

Then, after a few days more, a brief notice with a black-line drawn round
it, that ran, in Mr. Bodder's despite:

"Our _friend_ has passed away. Pray for his soul."

Sir Nicholas had written in great agitation to this effect.

"My sweetheart, I have heavy news to-day. There was a great company of
folks below my window to-day, in the Inner Ward, where the road runs up
below the Bloody Tower. It was about nine of the clock. And there was a
horse there whose head I could see; and presently from the Beauchamp
Tower came, as I thought, an old man between two warders; and then I
could not very well see; the men were in my way; but soon the horse went
off, and the men after him; and I could hear the groaning of the crowd
that were waiting for them outside. And when Mr. Jakes brought me my
dinner at eleven of the clock, he told me it was our friend--(think of
it, my dearest--him whom I thought an old man!)--that had been taken off
to Tyburn. And now I need say no more, but bid you pray for his soul."

Isabel could hardly finish reading it; for she heard a quick sobbing
breath behind her, and felt a wrinkled old hand caressing her hair and
cheek as her voice faltered.

Meanwhile Hubert was in town. Sir Nicholas had at first intended him to
go down at once and take charge of the estate; but Piers was very
competent, and so his father consented that he should remain in London
until the beginning of October; and this too better suited Mr. Norris'
plans who wished to send Isabel off about the same time to Northampton.

When Hubert at last did arrive, he soon showed himself extremely capable
and apt for the work. He was out on the estate from morning till night on
his cob, and there was not a man under him from Piers downwards who had
anything but praise for his insight and industry.

There was in Hubert, too, as there so often is in country-boys who love
and understand the life of the woods and fields, a balancing quality of a
deep vein of sentiment; and this was now consecrated to Isabel Norris. He
had pleasant dreams as he rode home in the autumn evening, under the
sweet keen sky where the harvest moon rose large and yellow over the
hills to his left and shed a strange mystical light that blended in a
kind of chord with the dying day