beginning to cause alarm, and
it seemed that a good fine would meet the old knight's case better than
any other execution of justice.

So then, it was decided; and as Isabel walked out to the gatehouse after
dinner beside Anthony, with her hand on his horse's neck, and as she
watched him at last ride down the village green and disappear round
behind the church, half her sorrow at losing him was swallowed up in the
practical certainty that they would meet again before Christmas in their
old home, and not in a stranger's house in the bleak North country.

On the following Thursday, Sir Nicholas' weekly letter showed evidence
that the good news of his release had begun to penetrate to him; his wife
longed to tell him all she had heard, but so many jealous eyes were on
the watch for favouritism that she had been strictly forbidden to pass on
her information. However there was little need.

"I am in hopes," he wrote, "of keeping Christmas in a merrier place than
prison. I do not mean _heaven_," he hastened to add, for fear of alarming
his wife. "Good Mr. Jakes tells me that Sir John is ill to-day, and that
he fears the gaol-fever; and if it is the gaol-fever, sweetheart, which
pray God it may not be _for Sir John's sake_, it will be the fourteenth
case in the Tower; and folks say that we shall all be let home again; but
with another good fine, they say, to keep us poor and humble, and mindful
of the Queen's Majesty her laws. However, dearest, I would gladly pay a
thousand pounds, if I had them, to be home again."

But there was news at the end of the letter that caused consternation in
one or two hearts, and sent Hubert across, storming and almost crying, to
Isabel, who was taking a turn in the dusk at sunset. She heard his step
beyond the hedge, quick and impatient, and stopped short, hesitating and
wondering.

He had behaved to her with extraordinary tact and consideration, and she
was very conscious of it. Since her sudden return ten days before from
the visit which had been meant to separate them, he had not spoken a word
to her privately, except a shy sentence or two of condolence, stammered
out with downcast eyes, but which from the simplicity and shortness of
the words had brought up a sob from her heart. She guessed that he knew
why she had been sent to Northampton, and had determined not to take
advantage in any way of her sorrow. Every morning he had disappeared
before she came down, and did not come back till