be done. You would have done the same
yourself," replied Philippa simply.

"Yes," cried Isabella, with a little cry that was more than half a sob;
"you are right. I should have done the same myself; but--I have loved
Francis Heathcote all my life. I should have done the same; but I did
not have the chance--did I? After all these years----

"Listen," she continued, as she leaned forward resting her chin on her
clasped hand, while into her eyes there crept the look of one who is
blind to what is actually before her, but entranced with some inward
vision visible to herself alone. "Listen, and I will tell you what I
can about that past which died so long ago and which is yet alive
to-day. When I was a girl, scarcely more than a child, I came to live
with an aunt in Bessacre village. My mother was dead, and my father,
who was one of those delightful but utterly unpractical people that the
world calls rolling stones, was seldom or never in England.

"My aunt was a woman rather hard to describe. My father used to say
that she had the brains of a rabbit and the tongue of a viper, and
perhaps that best explains her. She meant to be kind, I think, but she
was without exception the silliest and most empty-headed person I have
ever known. I do not say this unkindly; she gave me what she could,
and it was very little--just clothes and food; but of sympathy or human
understanding not a particle. And so it followed that I was very
lonely, which may in part account for what I have to tell.

"Francis Heathcote and I were about the same age, and during the
holidays we played a great deal together, and all the happiness of
those childish years I owe to him. We were allowed a good deal of
freedom, and there is hardly a stone or a tree in the park that does
not hold some memory of delight for me.

"Then of course came his college days, and he was more seldom at home,
but even so something of the old comradeship remained to us. And
then--one summer--circumstances threw us more closely together again.
I was at the age for dreams, and as I told you before, more than half a
fool, and God knows what ropes I wove out of gossamer--until--Phil came.

"She was very beautiful, and I expect you know the rest. One thing I
can honestly say, I was never jealous of her--I could not wonder that
Francis loved her. Every one revelled in her beauty, even I who
watched my ropes melt away into nothingness as the dew of the morning
before t