Charlton knew that he must go to see Isa, and that the whole village would know where he had gone, and that it would give Isa trouble, maybe.  He wanted to see Isa more than he wanted anything else in the world, but then he dreaded to see her.  She had pitied him and helped him in his trouble, but her letters had something of constraint in them.  He remembered how she had always mingled the friendliness of her treatment with something of reserve and coolness.  He did not care much for this in other times.  But now he found in himself such a hungering for something more from Isa, that he feared the effect of her cool dignity.  He had braced himself against being betrayed into an affection for Isabel.  He must not allow himself to become interested in her.  As an honorable man he could not marry her, of course.  But he would see her and thank her.  Then if she should give him a few kind words he would cherish them as a comforting memory in all the loneliness of following years.  He felt sorry for himself, and he granted to himself just so much indulgence.

Between his fear of compromising Isa and his feeling that on every account he must see her, his dread of meeting her and his desire to talk with her, he was in a state of compound excitement when he rose from his seat on the piazza of the City Hotel, and started down Plausaby street toward the house of Mrs. Ferret.  He had noticed some women going to the weekly prayer-meeting, and half-hoped, but feared more than he hoped, that Isabel should have gone to meeting also.  He knew how constant and regular she was in the performance of religious duties.

But Isa for once had staid at home.  And had received from Mrs. Ferret a caustic lecture on the sin of neglecting her duty for the sake of anybody.  Mrs. Ferret was afterward sorry she had said anything, for she herself wanted to stay to gratify her curiosity.  But Isabel did not mind the rebuke.  She put some petunias on the mantel-piece and some grasses over the looking-glass, and then tried to read, but the book was not interesting.  She was alarmed at her own excitement; she planned how she would treat Albert with mingled cordiality and reserve, and thus preserve her own dignity; she went through a mental rehearsal of the meeting two or three times—­in truth, she was just going over it the fourth time when Charlton stood between the morning-glory vines on the doorstep.  And when she saw his face pale with suffering, she forgot all about the rehearsal, and shook his hand with sisterly heartiness—­the word “sisterly” came to her mind most opportunely—­and looked at him with the utmost gladness, and sat him down by the window, and sat down facing him.  For the first time since Katy’s death he was happy.  He thought himself entitled to one hour of happiness after all that he had endured.

When Mrs. Ferret came home from prayer-meeting she entered by the back-gate, and judiciously stood for some time looking in at the window.  Charlton was telling Isa something about his imprisonment, and Mrs. Ferret, listening to the tones of his voice and seeing the light in Isa’s eyes, shook her head, and said to herself that it was scandalous for a Chrischen girl to act in such a way.