“Who?” repeated Lady Isabel, in a sharp tone of consternation.
“Captain Levison. Sir Peter consents to see him, with a view to the settlement of his liabilities, but Lady Levison declines to receive him at the Park. So I offered to give him house-room at East Lynne for a few days.”
There is an old saying, “the heart leaping into the mouth;” and Lady Isabel’s leaped into hers. She grew dizzy at the words—her senses seemed momentarily to desert her. Her first sensation was as if the dull earth had opened and shown her a way into Paradise; her second, a lively consciousness that Francis Levison ought not to be suffered to come again into companionship with her. Mr. Carlyle continued to converse of the man’s embarrassments, of his own interview with Sir Peter and Lady Levison; but Isabel was as one who heard not. She was debating the question, how she could prevent his coming?
“Archibald,” she presently said, “I do not wish Francis Levison to stay at East Lynne.”
“It will only be for a few days—perhaps but a day or two. Sir Peter is in the humor to discharge the claims, and, the moment his resolve is known, the ex-captain can walk on her majesty’s dominions, an unmolested man, free to go where he will.”
“That may be,” interrupted Lady Isabel, in an accent of impatience; “but why should he come to our house?”
“I proposed it myself. I had no idea you would dislike his coming. Why should you?”
“I don’t like Francis Levison,” she murmured. “That is, I don’t care to have him at East Lynne.”
“My dear, I fear there is no help for it now; he is most likely on his road, and will arrive to-morrow. I cannot turn him out again, after my own voluntary invitation. Had I known it would be disagreeable to you, I would not have proposed it.”
“To-morrow!” she exclaimed, all the words that caught her ear. “Is he coming to-morrow?”