"Give Alnwick to your brother, Sir Isaac. Remain yourself at Castle Wafer: never think of leaving it."
"You like Castle Wafer?"
"I never was in any place that I liked so much."
"Then you must not run away from it," said Sir Isaac, smiling.
"I don't want to run away from it," she answered, her eyes lifted pleadingly to his. "I have nowhere to run to. It is so hard--so very hard to make a fresh home! And I have so little to make one with. I lost all when I lost Alnwick."
A movement. Mrs. St. John was rising, and Frederick gave his mother a mental blessing as he opened the door. Sir Isaac passed the claret to him as he sat down, and he poured out a glass mechanically, but did not touch it. In the last twenty-four hours his doubts, as to Mrs. Carleton's designs on Sir Isaac, had become certainties, and his spirit was troubled.
"You have been inviting Mrs. Carleton to prolong her stay here, Isaac?"
"I invited her, when she first came, to stay as long as she liked," was Sir Isaac's reply. "I hope she will do so."
"Do you like her?"
"Very much indeed. I liked her the first time I ever saw her. Poor thing! so meek, so gentle, and so unfortunate! she has all my sympathy."