's tail.

CHAPTER IV

MARY CORBET

The spring that followed the visit to London passed uneventfully at Great
Keynes to all outward appearances; and yet for Isabel they were
significant months. In spite of herself and of the word of warning from
her father, her relations with Hubert continued to draw closer. For one
thing, he had been the first to awaken in her the consciousness that she
was lovable in herself, and the mirror that first tells that to a soul
always has something of the glow of the discovery resting upon it.

Then again his deference and his chivalrous air had a strange charm. When
Isabel rode out alone with Anthony, she often had to catch the swinging
gate as he rode through after opening it, and do such little things for
herself; but when Hubert was with them there was nothing of that kind.

And, once more, he appealed to her pity; and this was the most subtle
element of all. There was no doubt that Hubert's relations with his fiery
old father became strained sometimes, and it was extraordinarily sweet to
Isabel to be made a confidant. And yet Hubert never went beyond a certain
point; his wooing was very skilful: and he seemed to be conscious of her
uneasiness almost before she was conscious of it herself, and to relapse
in a moment into frank and brotherly relations again.

He came in one night after supper, flushed and bright-eyed, and found her
alone in the hall: and broke out immediately, striding up and down as she
sat and watched him.

"I cannot bear it; there is Mr. Bailey who has been with us all Lent; he
is always interfering in my affairs. And he has no charity. I know I am a
Catholic and that; but when he and my father talk against the
Protestants, Mistress Isabel, I cannot bear it. They were abusing the
Queen to-night--at least," he added, for he had no intention to
exaggerate, "they were saying she was a true daughter of her father; and
sneers of that kind. And I am an Englishman, and her subject; and I said
so; and Mr. Bailey snapped out, 'And you are also a Catholic, my son,'
and then--and then I lost my temper, and said that the Catholic religion
seemed no better than any other for the good it did people; and that the
Rector and Mr. Norris seemed to me as good men as any one; and of course
I meant him and he knew it; and then he told me, before the servants,
that I was speaking against the faith; and then I said I would