Isabel and the children remained the greater part of the summer at D----, but Emily returned home to join her mamma and sister, who had consented to join an expedition that had been got up among a few select friends. Upon the last afternoon of their stay at D---- they went for a ramble into a pretty little copse wood, the children were looking for berries, and Isabel sat upon a mossy bank reading.
"Come Isabel, let us at least be friends," said a voice close beside her.
Surprised and startled, Isabel beheld Louis Taschereau.
"Let us be friends," he repeated taking a seat on the bank.
"Impossible, Dr. Taschereau," said Isabel rising, "had you broken off your engagement in a straightforward manner, it might have been different, as your feelings had undergone a change, I should have been quite content to release you, but to have corresponded with me up to the very day of your marriage, and allow me by a chance meeting at an evening party to become aware of the fact for the first time, together with the effrontery with which you behaved on that occasion, are insults which I should be wanting in self respect not to resent."
"My feelings have undergone no change, they cannot change, it is you alone that I have ever loved or shall love, my wife I never did, never can. Oh pity me Isabel for I am most miserably unhappy."
"From my heart I pity her who is so unfortunate as to have Dr. Taschereau for a husband," she replied, "I cannot pity you, for if anything could make your conduct more contemptible, it is the fact that you have just acknowledged, that you do not love the girl that you have made your wife, though having seen the way in which you treat those you profess to love it is no great loss, and your happiness must ever be a matter of indifference to me."
"Oh cruel girl, I am not so heartless, what grieves me more than even my own misery is the thought of your suffering."
"Then pray do not distress yourself on my account Dr. Taschereau, whatever I may have felt it is past, for when Isabel Leicester could no longer esteem, she must cease to love."
"I will not believe that you find it so easy to forget me, for that you did love me you dare not deny, it was no passing fancy, you must feel more than you are willing to own," he said angrily.
"I do not wish to deny it," returned Isabel firmly, "but you out to have known me better than to think that I should continue to do so. After you were married it became my duty to forget that I had ever loved you, and to banish every thought of you. You have made your choice and now regrets are useless, even wrong, whatever she may be, she is your wife, and it is your duty and sh............
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