HARDYMAN went on to the cottage. He found Isabel in some agitation.
And there, by her side, with his tail wagging slowly, and his eye on
Hardyman in expectation of a possible kick--there was the lost Tommie!
“Has Lady Lydiard gone?” Isabel asked eagerly.
“Yes,” said Hardyman. “Where did you find the dog?”
As events had ordered it, the dog had found Isabel, under these
circumstances.
The appearance of Lady Lydiard’s card in the smoking-room had been an
alarming event for Lady Lydiard’s adopted daughter. She was guiltily
conscious of not having answered her Ladyship’s note, inclosed in
Miss Pink’s letter, and of not having taken her Ladyship’s advice in
regulating her conduct towards Hardyman. As he rose to leave the room
and receive his visitor in the grounds, Isabel begged him to say nothing
of her presence at the farm, unless Lady Lydiard exhibited a forgiving
turn of mind by asking to see her. Left by herself in the smoking-room,
she suddenly heard a bark in the passage which had a familiar sound in
her ears. She opened the door--and in rushed Tommie, with one of his
shrieks of delight! Curiosity had taken him into the house. He had heard
the voices in the smoking-room; had recognized Isabel’s voice; and
had waited, with his customary cunning and his customary distrust of
strangers, until Hardyman was out of the way. Isabel kissed and caressed
him, and then drove him out again to the lawn, fearing that Lady Lydiard
might return to look for him. Going back to the smoking-room, she stood
at the window watching for Hardyman’s return. When the servants came to
look for the dog, she could only tell them that she had last seen him
in the grounds, not far from the cottage. The useless search being
abandoned, and the carriage having left the gate, who should crawl out
from the back of a cupboard in which some empty hampers were placed but
Tommie himself! How he had contrived to get back to the smoking-room
(unless she had omitted to completely close the door on her return) it
was impossible to say. But there he was, determined this time to stay
with Isabel, and keeping in his hiding place until he heard the movement
of the carriage-wheels, which informed him that his lawful mistress had
left the cottage! Isabel had at once called Hardyman, on the chance
that the carriage might yet be stopped. It was already out of sight, and
nobody knew which of two roads it had taken, both leading to London. In
this emergency, Isabel could only look at Hardyman and ask what was to
be done.
“I can’t spare a servant till after the party,” he answered. “The dog
must be tied up in the stables.”
Isabel shook her head. Tommie was not accustomed to be tied up. He would
make a disturbance, and he would be beaten by the grooms. “I will take
care of him,” she said. “He won’t leave me.”
“There’s something else to think of besides the dog,” Hardyman rejoined
irritably. “Look at these letters!” He pulled them out of his pocket as
he spoke. “Here are no less than seven men, all calling themselves my
friends, who accepted my invitation, and who write to excuse themselves
on the very day of the party. Do you know why? They’re all afraid of my
father--I forgot to tell you he’s a Cabinet Minister as well as a Lord.
Cowards and cads. They have heard he isn’t coming and they think to
curry favor with the great man by stopping away. Come along, Isabel!
Let’s take their names off the luncheon table. Not a man of them shall
ever darken my doors again!”
“I am to blame for what has happened,” Isabel answered sadly. “I am
estranging you from your friends. There is still time, Alfred, to alter
your mind and let me go.”
He put his arm round her with rough fondness. “I would sacrifice every
friend I have in the world rather than lose you. Come along!”
They left the cottage. At the entrance to the tent, Hardyman noticed
the dog at Isabel’s heels, and vented his ill-temper, as usual with male
humanity, on the nearest unoffending creature that he could find. “Be
off, you mongrel brute!” he shouted. The tail of Tommie relaxed from its
customary tight curve over the small of his back; and the legs of Tommie
(with his tail between them) took him at full gallop to the friendly
shelter of the cupboard in the smoking-room. It was one of those
trifling circumstances which women notice seriously. Isabel said
nothing; she only thought to herself, “I wish he had shown his temper
when I first knew him!”
They entered the tent.
“I’ll read the names,” said Hardyman, “and you find the cards and tear
them up. Stop! I’ll keep the cards. You’re just the sort of woman my
father likes. He’ll be reconciled to me when he sees you, after we are
married. If one of those men ever asks him for a place, I’ll take
care, if it’s years hence, to put an obstacle in his way! Here; take my
pencil, and make a mark on the cards to remind me; the same mark I set
against a horse in my book when I don’t like him--a cross, inclosed in a
circle.” He produced his pocketbook. His hands trembled with anger as
he gave the pencil to Isabel and laid the book on the table. He had just
read the name of the first false friend, and Isabel had just found
the card, when a servant appeared with a message. “Mrs. Drumblade
has arrived, sir, and wishes to see you on a matter of the greatest
importance.”
Hardyman left the tent, not very willingly. “Wait here,” he said to
Isabel; “I’ll be back directly.”
She was standing near her own place at the table. Moody had left one
end of the jeweler’s case visible above the napkin, to attract her
attention. In a minute more the bracelet and note were in her hands. She
dropped on her chair, overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions that rose
in her at the sight of the bracelet, at the reading of the note. Her
head drooped, and the tears filled her eyes. “Are all women as blind
as I have been to what is good and noble in the men who love them?” she
wondered, sadly. “Better as it is,” she thought, with a bitter sigh; “I
am not worthy of him.”
As she took up the pencil to write her answer to Moody on the back of
her dinner-card, the servant appeared again at the door of the tent.
“My master wants you at the cottage, miss, immediately.”
Isabel rose, putting the bracelet and the note in the silver-mounted
leather pocket (a present from Hardyman) which hung at her belt. In the
hurry of passing round the table to get out, she never noticed that her
dress touched Hardyman’s pocketbook, placed close to the edge, and threw
it down on the grass below. The book fell into one of the heat cracks
which Lady Lydiard had noticed as evidence of the neglected condition of
the cottage lawn.
“You ought to hear the pleasant news my sister has just brought me,”
said Hardyman, when Isabel joined him in the parlor. “Mrs. Drumblade has
been told, on the best authority, that my mother is not coming to the
party.”
“There must be some reason, of course, dear Isabel,” added Mrs.
Drumblade. “Have you any idea of what it can be? I haven’t seen my
mother myself; and all my inquiries have failed to find it out.”
She looked searchingly at Isabel as she spoke. The mask of sympathy on
her face was admirably worn. Nobody who possessed only a superficial
acquaintance with Mrs. Drumblade’s character would have suspected how
thoroughly she was enjoying in secret the position of embarrassment in
which her news had placed her brother. Instinctively doubting whether
Mrs. Drumblade’s friendly behavior was quite as sincere as it appeared
to be, Isabel answered that she was a stranger to Lady Rotherfield, and
was therefore quite at a loss to explain the cause of her ladyship’s
absence. As she spoke, the guests began to arrive in quick succession,
and the subject was dropped as a matter of course.
It was not a merry party. Hardyman’s approaching marriage had been made
the topic of much malicious gossip, and Isabel’s character had, as usual
in such cases, become the object of all the false reports that
scandal could invent. Lady Rotherfield’s absence confirmed the general
conviction that Hardyman was disgracing himself. The men were all
more or less uneasy. The women resented the discovery that Isabel
was--personally speaking, at least--beyond the reach of hostile
criticism. Her beauty was viewed as a downright offense; her refined and
modest manners were set down as perfect acting; “really disgusting,
my dear, in so young a girl.” General Drumblade, a large and mouldy
veteran, in a state of chronic astonishment (after his own matrimonial
experience) at Hardyman’s folly in marrying at all, diffused a wide
circle of gloom, wherever he went and whatever he did. His accomplished
wife, forcing her high spirits on everybody’s attention with a sort of
kittenish playfulness, intensified the depressing effect of the general
dullness by all the force of the strongest contrast. After waiting half
an hour for his mother, and waiting in vain, Hardyman led the way to the
tent in despair. “The sooner I fill their stomachs and get rid of them,”
he thought savagely, “the better I shall be pleased!”
The luncheon was attacked by the company with a certain silent ferocity,
which the waiters noticed as remarkable, even in their large experience.
The men drank deeply, but with wonderfully little effect in raising
their spirits; the women, with the exception of amiable Mrs. Drumblade,
kept Isabel deliberately out of the conversation that went on among
them. General Drumblade, sitting next to her in one of the places of
honor, discoursed to Isabel privately on “my brother-in-law Hardyman’s
infernal temper.” A young marquis, on her other side--a mere lad,
chosen to make the necessary speech in acknowledgment of his superior
rank--rose, in a state of nervous trepidation, to propose Isabel’s
health as the chosen bride of their host. Pale and trembling, conscious
of having forgotten the words which he had learnt beforehand, this
unhappy young nobleman began: “Ladies and gentlemen, I haven’t an
idea--” He stopped, put his hand to his head, stared wildly, and sat
down again; having contrived to state his own case with masterly brevity
and perfect truth, in a speech of seven words.
While the dismay, in some cases, and the amusement in others, was still
at its height, Hardyman’s valet made his appearance, and, approaching
his master, said in a whisper, “Could I speak to you, sit, for a moment
outside?”
“What the devil do you want?” Hardyman asked irritably. “Is that a
letter in your hand? Give it to me.”
The valet was a Frenchman. In other words, he had a sense of what was
due to himself. His master had forgotten this. He gave up the letter
with a certain dignity of manner, and left the tent. Hardyman opened the
letter. He turned pale as he read it; crumpled it in his hand, and threw
it down on the table. “By G--d! it’s a lie!” he exclaimed furiously.
The guests rose in confusion. Mrs. Drumblade, finding the letter within
her reach, coolly possessed herself of it; recognized her mother’s
handwriting; and read these lines:
“I have only now succeeded in persuading your father to let me write
to you. For God’s sake, break off your marriage at any sacrifice. Your
father has heard, on unanswerable authority, that Miss Isabel Miller
left her situation in Lady Lydiard’s house on suspicion of theft.”
While his sister was reading this letter, Hardyman had made his way to
Isabel’s chair. “I must speak to you, directly,” he whispered. “Come
away with me!” He turned, as he took her arm, and looked at the table.
“Where is my letter?” he asked. Mrs. Drumblade handed it to him,
dexterously crumpled up again as she had found it. “No bad news, dear
Alfred, I hope?” she said, in her most affectionate manner. Hardyman
snatched the letter from her, without answering, and led Isabel out of
the tent.
“Read that!” he said, when they were alone. “And tell me at once whether
it’s true or false.”
Isabel read the letter. For a moment the shock of the discovery held her
speechless. She recovered herself, and returned the letter.
“It is true,” she answered.
Hardyman staggered back as if she had shot him.
“True that you are guilty?” he asked.
“No; I am innocent. Everybody who knows me believes in my innocence.
It is true the appearances were against me. They are against me still.”
Having said this, she waited, quietly and firmly, for his next words.
He passed his hand over his forehead with a sigh of relief. “It’s bad
enough as it is,” he said, speaking quietly on his side. “But the remedy
for it is plain enough. Come back to the tent.”
She never moved. “Why?” she asked.
“Do you suppose I don’t believe in your innocence too?” he answered.
“The one way of setting you right with the world now is for me to make
you my wife, in spite of the appearances that point to you. I’m too fond
of you, Isabel, to give you up. Come back with me, and I will announce
our marriage to my friends.”
She took his hand, and kissed it. “It is generous and good of you,” she
said; “but it must not be.”
He took a step nearer to her. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“It was against my will,” she pursued, “that my aunt concealed the truth
from you. I did wrong to consent to it, I will do wrong no more. Your
mother is right, Alfred. After what has happened, I am not fit to be
your wife until my innocence is proved. It is not proved yet.”
The angry color began to rise in his face once more. “Take care,” he
said; “I am not in a humor to be trifled with.”
“I am not trifling with you,” she answered, in low, sad tones.
“You really mean what you say?”
“I mean it.”
“Don’t be obstinate, Isabel. Take time to consider.”
“You are very kind, Alfred. My duty is plain to me. I will marry you--if
you still wish it--when my good name is restored to me. Not before.”
He laid one hand on her arm, and pointed with the other to the guests in
the distance, all leaving the tent on the way to their carriages.
“Your good name will be restored to you,” he said, “on the day when I
make you my wife. The worst enemy you have cannot associate _my_ name
with a suspicion of theft. Remember that and think a little before you
decide. You see those people there. If you don’t change your mind by the
time they have got to the cottage, it’s good-by between us, and good-by
forever. I refuse to wait for you; I refuse to accept a conditional
engagement. Wait, and think. They’re walking slowly; you have got some
minutes more.”
He still held her arm, watching the guests as they gradually receded
from view. It was not until they had all collected in a group outside
the cottage door that he spoke himself, or that he permitted Isabel to
speak again.
“Now,” he said, “you have had your time to get cool. Will you take my
arm, and join those people with me? or will you say good-by forever?”
“Forgive me, Alfred!” she began, gently. “I cannot consent, in justice
to you, to shelter myself behind your name. It is the name of your
family; and they have a right to expect that you will not degrade it--”
“I want a plain answer,” he interposed sternly. “Which is it? Yes, or
No?”
She looked at him with sad compassionate eyes. Her voice was firm as she
answered him in one word as he had desired. The word was--
“No.”
Without speaking to her, without even looking at her, he turned and
walked back to the cottage.
Making his way silently through the group of visitors--every one of whom
had been informed of what had happened by his sister--with his head down
and his lips fast closed, he entered the parlor and rang the bell which
communicated with his foreman’s rooms at the stables.
“You know that I am going abroad on business?” he said, when the man
appeared.
“Yes, sir.”
“I am going to-day--going by the night train to Dover. Order the horse
to be put to instantly in the dogcart. Is there anything wanted before I
am off?”
The inexorable necessities of business asserted their claims through
the obedient medium of the foreman. Chafing at the delay, Hardyman was
obliged to sit at his desk, signing checks and passing accounts, with
the dogcart waiting in the stable yard.
A knock at the door startled him in the middle of his work. “Come in,”
he called out sharply.
He looked up, expecting to see one of the guests or one of the servants.
It was Moody who entered the room. Hardyman laid down his pen, and fixed
his eyes sternly on the man who had dared to interrupt him.
“What the devil do _you_ want?” he asked.
“I have seen Miss Isabel, and spoken with her,” Moody replied. “Mr.
Hardyman, I believe it is in your power to set this matter right. For
the young lady’s sake, sir, you must not leave England without doing
it.”
Hardyman turned to his foreman. “Is this fellow mad or drunk?” he asked.
Moody proceeded as calmly and as resolutely as if those words had not
been spoken. “I apologize for my intrusion, sir. I will trouble you with
no explanations. I will only ask one question. Have you a memorandum of
the number of that five-hundred pound note you paid away in France?”
Hardyman lost all control over himself.
“You scoundrel!” he cried, “have you been prying into my private
affairs? Is it _your_ business to know what I did in France?”
“Is it _your_ vengeance on a woman to refuse to tell her the number of a
bank-note?” Moody rejoined, firmly.
That answer forced its way, through Hardyman’s anger, to Hardyman’s
sense of honor. He rose and advanced to Moody. For a moment the two men
faced each other in silence. “You’re a bold fellow,” said Hardyman, with
a sudden change from anger to irony. “I’ll do the lady justice. I’ll
look at my pocketbook.”
He put his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat; he searched his
other pockets; he turned over the objects on his writing-table. The book
was gone.
Moody watched him with a feeling of despair. “Oh! Mr. Hardyman, don’t
say you have lost your pocketbook!”
He sat down again at his desk, with sullen submission to the new
disaster. “All I can say is you’re at liberty to look for it,” he
replied. “I must have dropped it somewhere.” He turned impatiently to
the foreman, “Now then! What is the next check wanted? I shall go mad if
I wait in this damned place much longer!”
Moody left him, and found his way to the servants’ offices. “Mr.
Hardyman has lost his pocketbook,” he said. “Look for it, indoors and
out--on the lawn, and in the tent. Ten pounds reward for the man who
finds it!”
Servants and waiters instantly dispersed, eager for the promised reward.
The men who pursued the search outside the cottage divided their forces.
Some of them examined the lawn and the flower-beds. Others went straight
to the empty tent. These last were too completely absorbed in pursuing
the object in view to notice that they disturbed a dog, eating a stolen
lunch of his own from the morsels left on the plates. The dog slunk away
under the canvas when the men came in, waited in hiding until they had
gone, then returned to the tent, and went on with his luncheon.
Moody hastened back to the part of the grounds (close to the shrubbery)
in which Isabel was waiting his return.
She looked at him, while he was telling her of his interview with
Hardyman, with an expression in her eyes which he had never seen in them
before--an expression which set his heart beating wildly, and made him
break off in his narrative before he had reached the end.
“I understand,” she said quietly, as he stopped in confusion. “You have
made one more sacrifice to my welfare. Robert! I believe you are the
noblest man that ever breathed the breath of life!”
His eyes sank before hers; he blushed like a boy. “I have done nothing
for you yet,” he said. “Don’t despair of the future, if the pocketbook
should not be found. I know who the man is who received the bank note;
and I have only to find him to decide the question whether it _is_ the
stolen note or not.”
She smiled sadly as his enthusiasm. “Are you going back to Mr. Sharon to
help you?” she asked. “That trick he played me has destroyed _my_ belief
in him. He no more knows than I do who the thief really is.”
“You are mistaken, Isabel. He knows--and I know.” He stopped there, and
made a sign to her to be silent. One of the servants was approaching
them.
“Is the pocketbook found?” Moody asked.
“No, sir.”
“Has Mr. Hardyman left the cottage?”
“He has just gone, sir. Have you any further instructions to give us?”
“No. There is my address in London, if the pocketbook should be found.”
The man took the card that was handed to him and retired. Moody offered
his arm to Isabel. “I am at your service,” he said, “when you wish to
return to your aunt.”
They had advanced nearly as far as the tent, on their way out of the
grounds, when they were met by a gentleman walking towards them from the
cottage. He was a stranger to Isabel. Moody immediately recognized him
as Mr. Felix Sweetsir.
“Ha! our good Moody!” cried Felix. “Enviable man! you look younger than
ever.” He took off his hat to Isabel; his bright restless eyes suddenly
became quiet as they rested on her. “Have I the honor of addressing
the future Mrs. Hardyman? May I offer my best congratulations? What has
become of our friend Alfred?”
Moody answered for Isabel. “If you will make inquiries at the cottage,
sir,” he said, “you will find that you are mistaken, to say the least of
it, in addressing your questions to this young lady.”
Felix took off his hat again--with the most becoming appearance of
surprise and distress.
“Something wrong, I fear?” he said, addressing Isabel. “I am, indeed,
ashamed if I have ignorantly given you a moment’s pain. Pray accept
my most sincere apologies. I have only this instant arrived; my health
would not allow me to be present at the luncheon. Permit me to express
the earnest hope that matters may be set right to the satisfaction of
all parties. Good-afternoon!”
He bowed with elaborate courtesy, and turned back to the cottage.
“Who is that?” Isabel asked.
“Lady Lydiard’s nephew, Mr. Felix Sweetsir,” Moody answered, with
a sudden sternness of tone, and a sudden coldness of manner, which
surprised Isabel.
“You don’t like him?” she said.
As she spoke, Felix stopped to give audience to one of the grooms, who
had apparently been sent with a message to him. He turned so that
his face was once more visible to Isabel. Moody pressed her hand
significantly as it rested on his arm.
“Look well at that man,” he whispered. “It’s time to warn you. Mr. Felix
Sweetsir is the worst enemy you have!”
Isabel heard him in speechless astonishment. He went on in tones that
trembled with suppressed emotion.
“You doubt if Sharon knows the thief. You doubt if I know the thief.
Isabel! as certainly as the heaven is above us, there stands the wretch
who stole the bank-note!”
She drew her hand out of his arm with a cry of terror. She looked at him
as if she doubted whether he was in his right mind.
He took her hand, and waited a moment trying to compose himself.
“Listen to me,” he said. “At the first consultation I had with Sharon he
gave this advice to Mr. Troy and to me. He said, ‘Suspect the very last
person on whom suspicion could possibly fall.’ Those words, taken with
the questions he had asked before he pronounced his opinion, struck
through me as if he had struck me with a knife. I instantly suspected
Lady Lydiard’s nephew. Wait! From that time to this I have said nothing
of my suspicion to any living soul. I knew in my own heart that it
took its rise in the inveterate dislike that I have always felt for Mr.
Sweetsir, and I distrusted it accordingly. But I went back to Sharon,
for all that, and put the case into his hands. His investigations
informed me that Mr. Sweetsir owed ‘debts of honor’ (as gentlemen call
them), incurred through lost bets, to a large number of persons, and
among them a bet of five hundred pounds lost to Mr. Hardyman. Further
inquiries showed that Mr. Hardyman had taken the lead in declaring that
he would post Mr. Sweetsir as a defaulter, and have him turned out of
his clubs, and turned out of the betting-ring. Ruin stared him in the
face if he failed to pay his debt to Mr. Hardyman on the last day left
to him--the day after the note was lost. On that very morning, Lady
Lydiard, speaking to me of her nephew’s visit to her, said, ‘If I had
given him an opportunity of speaking, Felix would have borrowed money
of me; I saw it in his face.’ One moment more, Isabel. I am not only
certain that Mr. Sweetsir took the five-hundred pound note out of the
open letter, I am firmly persuaded that he is the man who told Lord
Rotherfield of the circumstances under which you left Lady Lydiard’s
house. Your marriage to Mr. Hardyman might have put you in a position to
detect the theft. You, not I, might, in that case, have discovered from
your husband that the stolen note was the note with which Mr. Sweetsir
paid his debt. He came here, you may depend on it, to make sure that he
had succeeded in destroying your prospects. A more depraved villain at
heart than that man never swung from a gallows!”
He checked himself at those words. The shock of the disclosure, the
passion and vehemence with which he spoke, overwhelmed Isabel. She
trembled like a frightened child.
While he was still trying to soothe and reassure her, a low whining
made itself heard at her feet. They looked down, and saw Tommie. Finding
himself noticed at last, he expressed his sense of relief by a bark.
Something dropped out of his mouth. As Moody stooped to pick it up, the
dog ran to Isabel and pushed his head against her feet, as his way was
when he expected to have the handkerchief thrown over him, preparatory
to one of those games at hide-and-seek which have been already
mentioned. Isabel put out her hand to caress him, when she was stopped
by a cry from Moody. It was _his_ turn to tremble now. His voice
faltered as he said the words, “The dog has found the pocketbook!”
He opened the book with shaking hands. A betting-book was bound up in
it, with the customary calendar. He turned to the date of the day after
the robbery.
There was the entry: “Felix Sweetsir. Paid 500 pounds. Note numbered, N
8, 70564; dated 15th May, 1875.”
Moody took from his waistcoat pocket his own memorandum of the number
of the lost bank-note. “Read it Isabel,” he said. “I won’t trust my
memory.”
She read it. The number and date of the note entered in the pocketbook
exactly corresponded with the number and date of the note that Lady
Lydiard had placed in her letter.
Moody handed the pocketbook to Isabel. “There is the proof of your
innocence,” he said, “thanks to the dog! Will you write and tell Mr.
Hardyman what has happened?” he asked, with his head down and his eyes
on the ground.
She answered him, with the bright color suddenly flowing over her face.
“_You_ shall write to him,” she said, “when the time comes.”
“What time?” he asked.
She threw her arms round his neck, and hid her face on his bosom.
“The time,” she whispered, “when I am your wife.”
A low growl from Tommie reminded them that he too had some claim to be
noticed.
Isabel dropped on her knees, and saluted her old playfellow with
the heartiest kisses she had ever given him since the day when their
acquaintance began. “You darling!” she said, as she put him down again,
“what can I do to reward you?”
Tommie rolled over on his back--more slowly than usual, in consequence
of his luncheon in the tent. He elevated his four paws in the air and
looked lazily at Isabel out of his bright brown eyes. If ever a dog’s
look spoke yet, Tommie’s look said, “I have eaten too much; rub my
stomach.”
POSTSCRIPT.
Persons of a speculative turn of mind are informed that the following
document is for sale, and are requested to mention what sum they will
give for it.
“IOU, Lady Lydiard, five hundred pounds (L500), Felix Sweetsir.”
Her Ladyship became possessed of this pecuniary remittance under
circumstances which surround it with a halo of romantic interest. It was
the last communication she was destined to receive from her accomplished
nephew. There was a Note attached to it, which cannot fail to enhance
its value in the estimation of all right-minded persons who assist the
circulation of paper money.
The lines that follow are strictly confidential:
“Note.--Our excellent Moody informs me, my dear aunt, that you have
decided (against his advice) on ‘refusing to prosecute.’ I have not
the slightest idea of what he means; but I am very much obliged to
him, nevertheless, for reminding me of a circumstance which is of some
interest to yourself personally.
“I am on the point of retiring to the Continent in search of health.
One generally forgets something important when one starts on a journey.
Before Moody called, I had entirely forgotten to mention that I had the
pleasure of borrowing five hundred pounds of you some little time since.
“On the occasion to which I refer, your language and manner suggested
that you would not lend me the money if I asked for it. Obviously, the
only course left was to take it without asking. I took it while Moody
was gone to get some curacoa; and I returned to the picture-gallery in
time to receive that delicious liqueur from the footman’s hands.
“You will naturally ask why I found it necessary to supply myself (if I
may borrow an expression from the language of State finance) with this
‘forced loan.’ I was actuated by motives which I think do me honor. My
position at the time was critical in the extreme. My credit with the
money-lenders was at an end; my friends had all turned their backs on
me. I must either take the money or disgrace my family. If there is a
man living who is sincerely attached to his family, I am that man. I
took the money.
“Conceive your position as my aunt (I say nothing of myself), if I had
adopted the other alternative. Turned out of the Jockey Club, turned
out of Tattersalls’, turned out of the betting-ring; in short, posted
publicly as a defaulter before the noblest institution in England, the
Turf--and all for want of five hundred pounds to stop the mouth of
the greatest brute I know of, Alfred Hardyman! Let me not harrow your
feelings (and mine) by dwelling on it. Dear and admirable woman! To
you belongs the honor of saving the credit of the family; I can claim
nothing but the inferior merit of having offered you the opportunity.
“My IOU, it is needless to say, accompanies these lines. Can I do
anything for you abroad?--F. S.”
To this it is only necessary to add (first) that Moody was perfectly
right in believing F. S. to be the person who informed Hardyman’s father
of Isabel’s position when she left Lady Lydiard’s house; and (secondly)
that Felix did really forward Mr. Troy’s narrative of the theft to
the French police, altering nothing in it but the number of the lost
bank-note.
What is there left to write about? Nothing is left--but to say good-by
(very sorrowfully on the writer’s part) to the Persons of the Story.
Good-by to Miss Pink--who will regret to her dying day that Isabel’s
answer to Hardyman was No.
Good-by to Lady Lydiard--who differs with Miss Pink, and would have
regretted it, to _her_ dying day, if the answer had been Yes.
Good-by to Moody and Isabel--whose history has closed with the closing
of the clergyman’s book on their wedding-day.
Good-by to Hardyman--who has sold his farm and his horses, and has begun
a new life among the famous fast trotters of America.
Good-by to Old Sharon--who, a martyr to his promise, brushed his hair
and washed his face in honor of Moody’s marriage; and catching a
severe cold as the necessary consequence, declared, in the intervals of
sneezing, that he would “never do it again.”
And last, not least, good-by to Tommie? No. The writer gave Tommie his
dinner not half an hour since, and is too fond of him to say good-by.