Three or four days were thus passed before he obtained any second opportunity of speaking with Isabel alone; but, on his arrival at the dwelling of Sir Philip Beauchamp, on the morning of the 9th of April, he was told by a servant whom he found in the hall, that the family had gone forth into the park; and, following immediately, he found Isabel sitting under the trees, without companions. She seemed to have been weeping, and it was a pleasant task for Dacre to strive to console her who had so often been his own comforter.
"There are tears in your eyes, dear Isabel," he said, as she rose gracefully to meet him. "What has grieved you?"
"Have you not seen my father?" asked the lady. "Do you not know that our dear Mary is going to leave us? She goes to London to-day, and he goes with her so far."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the knight; "that is very sudden."
"And very sad," answered Isabel; "the hall will be melancholy enough without her now--I cannot but weep, and shall never cease to regret her going."
"Nay, nay; time will bring balm, dear Isabel," answered Dacre. "You have often told me so."
"And have you believed me, Harry?" answered the lady, with a faint and almost reproachful smile; "even last night, you were more sad and grave than ever."
"Ay, but this is a different case," replied Dacre; "one can lose a friend--ay, even by death; one can lose anything more easily than honour and renown."
"But the loss of yours is only in your own fancy, Dacre," she answered. "Who believes this charge, that Simeon of Roydon dares to hint, but not to avow? Whom has it affected? In whom do you see a change? Surely not in my father; surely not in me."
"No, assuredly, Isabel," he said, after thinking for a while; "but as yet I have had no occasion to make the trial. Hearken, and I will put a case. Suppose, dear Isabel, that I were to love; suppose the lady that I loved had heard this tale; suppose that she had loved me well before, and at her knee I were now to crave the blessing of her hand; would not a doubt, would not a hesitation cross her mind? Would she not ask herself--"