At six o\'clock, Harold Carnegie returned from the office. He, too, had been thinking all day of Isabel Walters, and the moment he got home he went into the library to write a short note to her, before Ernest had, as usual, forestalled him. As he did so he happened to see a few words dimly transferred to the paper in the blotting-book. They were in Ernest\'s handwriting, and he was quite sure the four first words read, "My dear Miss Walters." Then Ernest had already been beforehand with him, after all! But not by a fortnight: that was one good point; not this time by a fortnight! He would be even with him yet; he would catch up this anticipatory twin-brother of his, by force or fraud, rather than let him steal away Isabel Walters from him once and for ever. "All\'s fair in love and war," he muttered to himself, taking up the blotting-book[Pg 148] carefully, and tearing out the tell-tale leaf in a furtive fashion. "Thank Heaven, Ernest writes a thick black hand, the same as I do; and I shall probably be able to read it by holding it up to the light." In his own soul Harold Carnegie loathed himself for such an act of petty meanness; but he did it; with love and jealousy goading him on, and the fear of his own twin-brother stinging him madly, he did it; remorsefully and shamefacedly, but still did it.

He took the page up to his own bedroom, and held it up to the window-pane. Blurred and indistinct, the words nevertheless came out legibly in patches here and there, so that with a little patient deciphering Harold could spell out the sense of both letters, though they crossed one another obliquely at a slight angle. "Very brief and casual acquaintance ... Montagus\' steam-launch expedition up the river from Surbiton to-morrow ... am going and am particularly anxious to meet you ... this favour of you...." "So that\'s his plan, is it?" Harold said to himself. "Softly, softly, Mr. Ernest, I think I can checkmate you! What\'s this in the one to Mrs. Montagu? \'Expect me to turn up at half-past two.\' Aha, I thought so! Checkmate, Mr. Ernest, checkmate: a scholar\'s mate for you! He\'ll be at the hospital till half-past one; then he\'ll take the train to Clapham Junction, expecting to catch the South-Western at 2.10. But to-morrow\'s the first of the month; the new time-tables come into force; I\'ve got one and looked it out already. The South-Western now leaves at 2.4, three minutes before Mr. Ernest\'s train arrives at Clapham Junction. I have him now, I have him now, depend upon it. I\'ll go down instead of him. I\'ll get the party under way at once. I\'ll monopolize Isabel, pretty Isabel. I\'ll find my opportunity at Aunt Portlebury\'s, and Ernest won\'t get down to Surbiton till the 2.50 train. Then he\'ll find his bird flown already. Aha! that\'ll make him angry.[Pg 149] Checkmate, my young friend, checkmate. You said it should be war, and war you shall have it. I thank thee, friend, for teaching me that word. Rivals now, you said; yes, rivals. \'Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?\' Why, that comes out of the passage about Androgeos! An omen, a good omen. There\'s nothing like war for quickening the intelligence. I haven\'t looked at a Virgil since I was in the sixth form; and yet the line comes back to me now, after five years, as pat as the Catechism."

Chuckling to himself at the fraud to stifle conscience (for he had a conscience), Harold Carnegie dressed hastily for dinner, and went down quickly in a state of feverish excitement. Dinner passed off grimly enough. He knew Ernest had written to Isabel; and Ernest guessed from the other\'s excited, triumphant manner (though he tried hard to dissemble the note of triumph in it) that Harold must have written too—perhaps forestalling him by a direct proposal. In a dim way Mrs. Carnegie guessed vaguely that some coldness had arisen between her two boys, the first time for many years; and so she held her peace for the most part, or talked in asides to Nellie Holt and her daughter. The conversation was therefore chiefly delegated to Mr. Carnegie himself, who discoursed with much animation about the iniquitous nature of the new act for reducing costs in actions for the recovery of small debts—a subject calculated to arouse the keenest interest in the minds of Nellie and Edie.

Next morning, Harold Carnegie started for the office with prospective victory elate in his very step, and yet with the consciousness of his own mean action grinding him down to the pavement as he walked along it. What a dirty, petty, dishonourable subterfuge! and still he would go through with it. What a self-degrading bit of treachery! and yet he would carry it out. "Pater," he said, as he walked along, "I mean to take a holiday this afternoon. I\'m going to the Montagus\' water-party."[Pg 150]

"Very inconvenient, Harold, my boy; \'Wilkins versus the Great Northern Railway Company\' coming on for hearing; and, besides, Ernest\'s going there too. They won\'t want a pair of you, will they?"

"Can\'t help it, Pater," Harold answered. "I have particular business at Surbiton, much more important to me than \'Wilkins versus the Great Northern Railway Company.\'"

His father looked at him keenly. "Ha!" he said, "a lady in the case, is there? Very well, my boy, if you must you must, and that\'s the end of it. A young man in love never does make an efficient lawyer. Get it over quickly, pray; get it over quickly, that\'s all I beg of you."

"I shall get it over, I promise you," Harold answered, "this very afternoon."

The father whistled. "Whew," he said, "that\'s sharp work, too, Harold, isn\'t it? You haven\'t even told me her name yet. This is really very sudden." But as Harold volunteered no further information, Mr. Carnegie, who was a shrewd man of the world, held it good policy to ask him nothing more about it for the present; and so they walked on the rest of the way to the father\'s office in unbroken silence.

At one o\'clock, Harold shut up his desk at the office and ran down to Surbiton. At Clapham Junction he kept a sharp look-out for Ernest, but Ernest was not there. Clearly, as Harold anticipated, he hadn\'t learnt the alteration in the time-tables, and wouldn\'t reach Clapham Junction till the train for Surbiton had started.

At Surbiton, Harold pushed on arrangements as quickly as possible, and managed to get the party off before Ernest arrived upon the scene. Mrs. Montagu, seeing "one of the young Carnegies" duly to hand, and never having attempted to discriminate between them in any way, was perfectly happy at the prospect of getting landed at Lady[Pg 151] Portlebury\'s without any minute investigation of the intricate question of Christian names. The Montagus were nouveaux riches in the very act of pushing themselves into fashionable society; and a chance of invading the Portlebury lawn was extremely welcome to them upon any terms whatsoever.

Isabel Walters was looking charming. A light morning dress became her even better than the dark red satin of the night before last; and she smiled at Harold with the smile of a mutual confidence when she took his hand, in a way that made his heart throb fast within him. From that mo............