She leaned back, panting in her emotion, but hiding it from Captain Levison. As they came opposite to Justice Hare’s she deliberately bent forward and scanned the garden with eager eyes.
There, in the bright moonlight, all too bright and clear, slowly paced arm in arm, and drawn close to each other, her husband and Barbara Hare. With a choking sob that could no longer be controlled or hidden, Lady Isabel sunk back again.
He, that bold, bad man, dared to put his arm around her, to draw her to his side; to whisper that his love was left to her, if another’s was withdrawn. She was most assuredly out of her senses that night, or she never would have listened.
A jealous woman is mad; an outraged woman is doubly mad; and the ill-fated Lady Isabel truly believed that every sacred feeling which ought to exist between man and wife was betrayed by Mr. Carlyle.
“Be avenged on that false hound, Isabel. He was never worthy of you. Leave your life of misery, and come to happiness.”
In her bitter distress and wrath, she broke into a storm of sobs. Were they caused by passion against her husband, or by those bold and shameless words? Alas! Alas! Francis Levison applied himself to soothe her with all the sweet and dangerous sophistry of his crafty nature.
The minutes flew on. A quarter to ten; now a quarter past ten; and still Richard Hare lingered on with his mother, and still Mr. Carlyle and Barbara paced patiently the garden path. At half-past ten Richard came forth, after having taken his last farewell. Then came Barbara’s tearful farewell, which Mr. Carlyle witnessed; and then a hard grasp of that gentleman’s hand, and Richard plunged amidst the trees to depart the way he came.
“Good night, Barbara,” said Mr. Carlyle.
“Will you not come in and say good night to mamma?”
“Not now; it is late. Tell her how glad I am things have gone off so well.”