"WELL?" asked Isabel eagerly, "what does Mr. Hardyman say? Doeshe think he can cure Tommie?"

Moody answered a little coldly and stiffly. His dark, deeply-seteyes rested on Isabel with an uneasy look.

"Mr. Hardyman seems to understand animals," he said. "He liftedthe dog's eyelid and looked at his eyes, and then he told us thebath was useless."

"Go on!" said Isabel impatiently. "He did something, I suppose,besides telling you that the bath was useless?"

"He took a knife out of his pocket, with a lancet in it."

Isabel clasped her hands with a faint cry of horror. "Oh, Mr.Moody! did he hurt Tommie?"

"Hurt him?" Moody repeated, indignant at the interest which shefelt in the animal, and the indifference which she exhibitedtowards the man (as represented by himself). "Hurt him, indeed!Mr. Hardyman bled the brute--"

"Brute?" Isabel reiterated, with flashing eyes. "I know somepeople, Mr. Moody, who really deserve to be called by that horridword. If you can't say 'Tommie,' when you speak of him in mypresence, be so good as to say 'the dog.' "

Moody yielded with the worst possible grace. "Oh, very well! Mr.Hardyman bled the dog, and brought him to his senses directly. Iam charged to tell you--" He stopped, as if the message which hewas instructed to deliver was in the last degree distasteful tohim.

"Well, what were you charged to tell me?"

"I was to say that Mr. Hardyman will give you instructions how totreat the dog for the future."

Isabel hastened to the door, eager to receive her instructions.Moody stopped her before she could open it.

"You are in a great hurry to get to Mr. Hardyman," he remarked.

Isabel looked back at him in surprise. "You said just now thatMr. Hardyman was waiting to tell me how to nurse Tommie."

"Let him wait," Moody rejoined sternly. "When I left him, he wassufficiently occupied in expressing his favorable opinion of youto her Ladyship."

The steward's pale face turned paler still as he said thosewords. With the arrival of Isabel in Lady Lydiard's house "histime had come"--exactly as the women in the servants' hall hadpredicted. At last the impenetrable man felt the influence of thesex; at last he knew the passion of love misplaced, ill-starred,hopeless love, for a woman who was young enough to be his child.He had already spoken to Isabel more than once in terms whichtold his secret plainly enough. But the smouldering fire ofjealousy in the man, fanned into flame by Hardyman, now showeditself for the first time. His looks, even more than his words,would have warned a woman with any knowledge of the natures ofmen to be careful how she answered him. Young, giddy, andinexperienced, Isabel followed the flippant impulse of themoment, without a thought of the consequences. "I'm sure it'svery kind of Mr. Hardyman to speak favorably of me," she said,with a pert little laugh. "I hope you are not jealous of him, Mr.Moody?"

Moody was in no humor to make allowances for the unbridled gayetyof youth and good spirits.

"I hate any man who admires you," he burst out passionately, "lethim be who he may!"

Isabel looked at her strange lover with unaffected astonishment.How unlike Mr. Hardyman, who had treated her as a lady from firstto last! "What an odd man you are!" she said. "You can't take ajoke. I'm sure I didn't mean to offend you."

"You don't offend me--you do worse, you distress me."

Isabel's color began to rise. The merriment died out of her face;she looked at Moody gravely. "I don't like to be accused ofdistressing people when I don't deserve it," she said. "I hadbetter leave you. Let me by, if you please."

Having committed one error in offending her, Moody committedanother in attempting to make his peace with her. Acting underthe fear that she would really leave him, he took her roughly bythe arm.

"You are always trying to get away from me," he said. "I wish Iknew how to make you like me, Isabel."

"I don't allow you to call me Isabel!" she retorted, strugglingto free herself from his hold. "Let go of my arm. You hurt me."

Moody dropped her arm with a bitter sigh. "I don't know how todeal with you," he said simply. "Have some pity on me!"

If the steward had known anything of women (at Isabel's age) hewould never have appealed to her mercy in those plain terms, andat the unpropitious moment. "Pity you?" she repeatedcontemptuously. "Is that all you have to say to me after hurtingmy arm? What a bear you are!" She shrugged her shoulders and puther hands coquettishly into the pockets of her apron. That washow she pitied him! His face turned paler and paler--he writhedunder it.

"For God"s sake, don't turn everything I say to you intoridicule!" he cried. "You know I love you with all my heart andsoul. Again and again I have asked you to be my wife--and youlaugh at me as if it was a joke. I haven't deserved to be treatedin that cruel way. It maddens me--I can't endure it!"

Isabel looked down on the floor, and followed the lines in thepattern of the carpet with the end of her smart little shoe. Shecould hardly have been further away from really understandingMoody if he had spoken in Hebrew. She was partly startled, partlypuzzled, by the strong emotions which she had unconsciouslycalled into being. "Oh dear me!" she said, "why can't you talk ofsomething else? Why can't we be friends? Excuse me for mentioningit," she went on, looking up at him with a saucy smile, "you areold enough to be my father."

His voice trembled as he appealed to her in those simple words.He had taken the right way at last to produce an impression onher. She really felt for him. All that was true and tender in hernature began to rise in her and take his part. Unhappily, he felttoo deeply and too strongly to be patient, and give her time. Hecompletely misinterpreted her silence--completely mistook themotive that made her turn aside for a moment, to gather composureenough to speak to him. "Ah!" he burst out bitterly, turning awayon his side, "you have no heart."

She instantly resented those unjust words. At that moment theywounded her to the quick.

"You know best," she said. "I have no doubt you are right.Remember one thing, however, that though I have no heart, I havenever encouraged you, Mr. Moody. I have declared over and overagain that I could only be your friend. Understand that for thefuture, if you please. There are plenty of nice women who will beglad to marry you, I have no doubt. You will always have my bestwishes for your welfare. Good-morning. Her Ladyship will wonderwhat has become of me. Be so kind as to let me pass."

Tortured by the passion that consumed him, Moody obstinately kepthis place between Isabel and the door. The unworthy suspicion ofher, which had been in his mind all through the interview, nowforced its way outwards to expression at last.

"No woman ever used a man as you use me without some reason forit," he said. "You have kept your secret wonderfully well--butsooner or later all secrets get found out. I know what is in yourmind as well as you know it yourself. You are in love with someother man."

Isabel's face flushed deeply; the defensive pride of her sex wasup in arms in an instant. She cast one disdainful look at Moody,without troubling herself to express her contempt in words."Stand out of my way, sir!" --that was all she said to him.

"You are in love with some other man," he reiteratedpassionately. "Deny it if you can!"

"Deny it?" she repeated, with flashing eyes. "What right have youto ask the question? Am I not free to do as I please?"

He stood looking at her, meditating his next words with a suddenand sinister change to self-restraint. Suppressed rage was in hisrigidly set eyes, suppressed rage was in his trembling hand as heraised it emphatically while he spoke his next words.

"I have one thing more to say," he answered, "and then I havedone. If I am not your husband, no other man shall be. Look wellto it, Isabel Miller. If there _is_ another man between us, I cantell him this--he shall find it no easy matter to rob me of you!"

She started, and turned pale--but it was only for a moment. Thehigh spirit that was in her rose brightly in her eyes, and facedhim without shrinking.

"Threats?" she said, with quiet contempt. "When you make love,Mr. Moody, you take strange ways of doing it. My conscience iseasy. You may try to frighten me, but you will not succeed. Whenyou have recovered your temper I will accept your excuses." Shepaused, and pointed to the table. "There is the letter that youtold me to leave for you when I had sealed it," she went on. "Isuppose you have her Ladyship's orders. Isn't it time you beganto think of obeying them?"

The contemptuous composure of her tone and manner seemed to acton Moody with crushing effect. Without a word of answer, theunfortunate steward took up the letter from the table. Without aword of answer, he walked mechanically to the great door whichopened on the staircase--turned on the threshold to look atIsabel--waited a moment, pale and still--and suddenly left theroom.

That silent departure, that hopeless submission, impressed Isabelin spite of herself. The sustaining sense of injury and insultsank, as it were, from under her the moment she was alone. He hadnot been gone a minute before she began to be sorry for him oncemore. The interview had taught her nothing. She was neither oldenough nor experienced enough to understand the overwhelmingrevolution produced in a man's character when he feels thepassion of love for the first time in the maturity of his life.If Moody had stolen a kiss at the first opportunity, she wouldhave resented the liberty he had taken with her; but she wouldhave thoroughly understood him. His terrible earnestness, hisoverpowering agitation, his abrupt violence--all these evidencesof a passion that was a mystery to himself--simply puzzled her."I'm sure I didn't wish to hurt his feelings" (such was the formthat her reflections took, in her present penitent frame ofmind); "but why did he provoke me? It is a shame to tell me thatI love some other man--when there is no other man. I declare Ibegin to hate the men, if they are all like Mr. Moody. I wonderwhether he will forgive me when he sees me again? I'm sure I'mwilling to forget and forgive on my side--especially if he won'tinsist on my being fond of him because he is fond of me. Oh,dear! I wish he would come back and shake hands. It's enough totry the patience of a saint to be treated in this way. I wish Iwas ugly! The ugly ones have a quiet time of it--the men let thembe. Mr. Moody! Mr. Moody!" She went out to the landing and calledto him softly. There was no answer. He was no longer in thehouse. She stood still for a moment in silent vexation. "I'll goto Tommie!" she decided. "I'm sure he's the more agreeablecompany of the two. And--oh, good gracious! there's Mr. Hardymanwaiting to give me my instructions! How do I look, I wonder?"

She consulted the glass once more--gave one or two correctivetouches to her hair and her cap--and hastened into the boudoir.