supper, where he sat
silent and apart, and yet, when an occasion offered itself, behaved with
a quick attentive deference that showed her where his thoughts had been.

Now she stood, wondering and timid, at that hurried insistent step on the
other side of the hedge. As she hesitated, he came quickly through the
doorway and stopped short.

"Mistress Isabel," he said, with all his reserve gone, and looking at her
imploringly, but with the old familiar air that she loved, "have you
heard? I am to go as soon as my father comes back. Oh! it is a shame!"

His voice was full of tears, and his eyes were bright and angry. Her
heart leapt up once and then seemed to cease beating.

"Go?" she said; and even as she spoke knew from her own dismay how dear
that quiet chivalrous presence was to her.

"Yes," he went on in the same voice. "Oh! I know I should not speak;
and--and especially now at all times; but I could not bear it; nor that
you should think it was my will to go."

She stood still looking at him.

"May I walk with you a little," he said, "but--I must not say much--I
promised my father."

And then as they walked he began to pour it out.

"It is some old man in Durham," he said, "and I am to see to his estates.
My father will not want me here when he comes back, and, and it is to be
soon. He has had the offer for me; and has written to tell me. There is
no choice."

She had turned instinctively towards the house, and the high roofs and
chimneys were before them, dark against the luminous sky.

"No, no," said Hubert, laying his hand on her arm; and at the touch she
thrilled so much that she knew she must not stay, and went forward
resolutely up the steps of the terrace.

"Ah! let me speak," he said; "I have not troubled you much, Mistress
Isabel."

She hesitated again a moment.

"In my father's room," he went on, "and I will bring the letter."

She nodded and passed into the hall without speaking, and turned to Sir
Nicholas' study; while Hubert's steps dashed up the stairs to his
mother's room. Isabel went in and stood on the hearth in the firelight
that glowed and wavered round the room on the tapestry and the prie-dieu
and the table where Hubert had been sitting and the tall shuttered
windows, leaning her head against the mantelpiece, doubtful and
miserable.

"Listen," said Hubert, bursting into the room a moment later with the
sheet open in his hand.

"'Tell Hubert that Lord Arncliffe needs a gentle