Concerning Isabel Carnaby

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

"Isabel, you are very cruel and very unjust; have you no consideration for my feelings?"

"Not I. Why should I, when you have none for mine? You seem to think that feelings are a sign of exquisite refinement peculiar to yourself, and you are so busy seeing that everybody fulfils their duty to you, that you have no time to think of your duty to other people."

"We have had enough of this," said Paul, rising from his seat.

"More than enough, I should say."

"Still I have one question to ask. Did you mean it when you said that I only cared for you as a stepping-stone to my own success?"

Isabel tossed her head. "Of course I meant it; you never care for anything or anybody that does not minister to your own pride."

Paul's face was white, and his voice shook. "Then I have only one thing to say before I go out of your life altogether. I will not profane my love for you by talking about it to a woman who would grow tired of any lover as soon as his novelty had worn off; but I wish you to understand that I will neither see you nor speak to you, nor hold any communication with you, till you ask my forgiveness for having so insulted me, and till you retract that cruel untruth which in your heart of hearts you know to be untrue as well as I do."

Isabel drew herself to her full height, and her eyes blazed. It showed how little Paul really loved her, she thought, that he could give her up so easily. "Then you will never see me nor speak to me again," she said; "for I am not the woman to come grovelling to a man for pardon, because I once dared to tell him the truth to his face."

Without another word Paul turned on his heel and left her, and never once looked back. As he strode out of Kensington Gardens he felt that to him in future the place would be a cemetery rather than a garden, for there he had buried the one love of his life.

So Paul and Isabel passed out of each other's ken, simply because the latter had been fool enough to think that a good man's love was a thing to be played with, rather than a gift for which to "thank heaven, fasting".