Isabel went out again on her way home with a mingled feeling of relief and bewilderment. She was not nourishing one single thought of herself or her own affairs as she threaded the winding way; and perhaps it was for this reason that the sight of the figure, advancing{239} to meet her as she turned the corner, came upon her with such startling suddenness. Two steps brought her from the solitude of the road immediately in front of him, and these two steps marked the immensely greater revulsion from unselfish solicitude for another to the sudden wild return of her own life into her passive soul, which seemed no actor, but only a spectator of the change. She came round the corner lightly and swiftly with dreaming eyes, looking into the air, which was vacant of everything but the trees and the reflections of sky and water, and all the sweetness of the time—and suddenly looked full into the face of Horace Stapylton, so near to her that he seemed to have sprung from some hiding-place, or dropped from the sky! Had there been even a minute’s interval to prepare her for his appearance, it would have been different. But he came upon her all at once without even a sound of his step on the mossy, grassy path. She stood still and gave a low cry. Her heart gave a leap as to her lips. A sudden colour rushed over her face, and with a pang as sudden, the sense of having betrayed herself rushed after the first thrill of emotion into her heart.

‘Isabel!’ he said, making one rapid step towards her, and taking her hand in his. He would never have ventured to do it, but for her self-betrayal. He had not been taken by surprise. He gazed at her with eyes that shone and glowed with unconcealed feeling. Isabel grew as suddenly pale as she felt the warm pressure of his hand. She drew herself away, and stepped aside, and made him a little formal bow.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, ‘Mr. Stapylton; I did not know you were there. It was—the surprise——’

‘And then when you recollect, and get over the surprise, you drive me away,’ he said, looking as he had looked in the old days, when he had a lover’s right to her attention, and dared complain and quarrel with her. ‘Why should you drive me away? Why may we not be friends?’

‘Mr. Stapylton, you mistake,’ she said, with confusion; ‘I was not thinking—there is no reason. I was startled to see you—I mean, to see anyone. The road is so lonely here.’

‘There was a time,’ he said, turning with her as she made a movement to go on—‘there was a time when it would have been no surprise to you to meet me anywhere, wherever I knew you to be.’

‘But times change,’ she said, breathlessly, and then, with eagerness to change the subject, made the best plunge she could into general conversation. ‘I have been seeing Mrs. Diarmid, at Ardnamore.{240}’

‘That was Ailie; was it not?’

‘Yes, it was Ailie,’ she said, regaining a little courage. ‘She married Mr. John. Not caring for him, perhaps—that is—I mean—not at first.’

‘People do such things,’ he said, not looking at her, ‘every day.’

‘And she has come back,’ said Isabel, who was too much agitated to think that he meant to launch any passing arrow at herself, ‘and I do not understand what ails her. She is no longer a prophet; but that is not all. She sits and never looks at you, never speaks; and she says God has deceived her; and her husband has gone away.’

‘They must be a strange couple,’ said Stapylton, bringing that subject to a sudden close. Perhaps it was her evident agitation, the tremor with which she recognised him in her surprise, that made him so bold; but he was impatient, it was clear, of ordinary conversation. ‘I can’t call you by your new name,’ he said, suddenly. ‘When I saw you the other day, with that old woman by your side—and that—child—in your arms——’

‘Mr. Stapylton, you are not to speak to me so!’

‘When I saw you,’ he repeated, with a certain hurry and sweep of passion, which she could not stand against, ‘it shook me like an earthquake. Yes, Isabel—I have been like you, trying not to think. Don’t try now to make me believe you are quite calm talking of other things. You can’t forget three years ago—I know you don’t forget——’

‘I have nothing to be ashamed of—in—three years ago,’ said Isabel, trembling, and with all the colour rushing to her face.

‘And I have,’ he said. ‘Ah, I acknowledge that; I would confess it on my knees if you would listen. Ashamed—bitterly ashamed! To think of all that might have been prevented—all the harm that might have been spared—if I had not been such a coward and a fool.’

There was self-reproach in his voice; and Isabel felt a tender compunction seize her, felt her strength stolen from her. If going away from her had made him desperate, should not she be the first to forgive?

‘Indeed I do not blame you,’ she said softly; ‘it has turned out—for the best.’

‘For the best!’ he cried passionately; ‘at least, you cannot expect me to grant that. Your very dress which you wear for him—your very name—everything—how can I stand here and look at you and bear it—I who never changed in my heart?’

‘Mr. Stapylton,’ said Isabel, ‘you have nothing to do{241} with me now. You are a stranger, and we were not speaking of your heart. That has nothing—nothing to do with me. I must go home to my baby. I beg of you not to come any further, but to let me go.’

‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘look at me, don’t turn your eyes away from me: I am not a stranger; you could not make me so were you ever so cruel; the time will never be when we shall have nothing to do with each other, you and I—only look at me! What reason can there be why we should part now?’

‘Oh, Mr. Stapylton, let me go,’ she said, shrinking aside from him, not venturing to raise her eyes. She dared not look at him as he begged her to do. She knew that ............