r.

"Ah! yes; you thank God, I know; but whom am I to thank for it?"

"I would that you could thank Him too."

Hubert made a sharp sound of disgust.

"Ah! yes," he said scornfully, "I knew it; _Non nobis Domine_, and the
rest."

"Hubert," said Lady Maxwell, "I do not think you mean to insult me in
this house; but either that is an insult, or else I misunderstood you
wholly, and must ask your pardon for it."

"Well," he said, in a harsh voice, "I will make myself plain. I believe
that it is through the influence of you and Aunt Margaret that this has
been brought about."

At the moment he spoke the door opened.

"Come in, Margaret," said her sister, "this concerns you."

The old nun came across to Hubert with her anxious sweet face; and put
her old hand tenderly on his black satin sleeve as he sat and wrenched at
a nut between his fingers.

"Hubert, dear boy," she said, "what is all this? Will you tell me?"

Hubert rose, a little ashamed of himself, and went to the door and closed
it; and then drew out a chair for his aunt, and put a wine-glass for her.

"Sit down, aunt," he said, and pushed the decanter towards her.

"I have just left Isabel," she said, "she is very unhappy about
something. You saw her this evening, dear lad?"

"Yes," said Hubert, heavily, looking down at the table and taking up
another nut, "and it is of that that I have been speaking. Who has made
her unhappy?"

"I had hoped you would tell us that," said Mistress Margaret; "I came up
to ask you."

"My son has done us--me--the honour----" began Lady Maxwell; but Hubert
broke in:

"I left Isabel here last Christmas happy and a Protestant. I have come
back here now to find her unhappy and half a Catholic, if not
more--and----"

"Oh! are you sure?" asked Mistress Margaret, her eyes shining. "Thank
God, if it be so!"

"Sure?" said Hubert, "why she will not marry me; at least not yet."

"Oh, poor lad," she said tenderly, "to have lost both God and Isabel."

Hubert turned on her savagely. But the old nun's eyes were steady and
serene.

"Poor lad!" she said again.

Hubert looked down again; his lip wrinkled up in a little sneer.

"As far as I am concerned," he said, "I can understand your not caring,
but I am astonished at this response of yours to her father's
confidence!"

Lady Maxwell grew white to the lips.

"I have told you," she began--"but you do not seem to believe it--that I
have had nothing to do, so far as I know,