But now look at the mean treachery of that man, Francis Levison!  The few meetings that Lady Isabel did witness between her husband and Barbara would have been quite enough to excite her anger and jealousy, to trouble her peace; but, in addition, Francis Levison took care to tell her of those she did not see.  It pleased him—­he could best tell with what motive—­to watch the movements of Mr. Carlyle and Barbara.  There was a hedge pathway through the fields, on the opposite side of the road to the residence of Justice Hare, and as Mr. Carlyle walked down the road to business in his unsuspicion (not one time in fifty did he choose to ride; the walk to and fro kept him in health, he said), Captain Levison would be strolling down like a serpent behind the hedge, watching all his movements, watching his interviews with Barbara, did any take place, watching Mr. Carlyle turn into the grove, as he sometimes did, and perhaps watch Barbara run out of the house to meet him.  It was all related over, and with miserable exaggeration, to Lady Isabel, whose jealousy, as a natural sequence, grew feverish in its extent.

It is scarcely necessary to explain, that of this feeling of Lady Isabel’s Barbara knew nothing; not a shadow of suspicion had ever penetrated to her mind that Lady Isabel was jealous of her.  Had she been told that such was the fact, she would have laughed in derision at her informant.  Mr. Carlyle’s happy wife, proudly secure in her position and in his affection, jealous of her! of her, to whom he had never given an admiring look or a loving word!  It would have taken a great deal to make Barbara believe that.

How different were the facts in reality.  These meetings of Mr. Carlyle’s and Barbara’s, instead of episodes of love-making and tender speeches, were positively painful, especially to Barbara, from the unhappy nature of the subject to be discussed.  Far from feeling a reprehensible pleasure at seeking the meetings with Mr. Carlyle, Barbara shrank from them; but that she was urged by dire necessity, in the interests of Richard, she would wholly have avoided such.  Poor Barbara, in spite of that explosion of bottled-up excitement years back, was a lady, possessed of a lady’s ideas and feelings, and—­remembering the explosion—­it did not accord with her pride at all to be pushing herself into what might be called secret meetings with Archibald Carlyle.  But Barbara, in her sisterly love, pressed down all thought of self, and went perseveringly forward for Richard’s sake.

Mr. Carlyle was seated one morning in his private room at his office, when his head clerk, Mr. Dill came in.  “A gentleman is asking to see you, Mr. Archibald.”

“I am too busy to see anybody for this hour to come.  You know that, Dill.”

“So I told him, sir, and he says he’ll wait.  It is that Captain Thorn who is staying here with John Herbert.”

Mr. Carlyle raised his eyes, and they encountered those of the old man; a peculiar expression was in the face of both.  Mr. Carlyle glanced down at the parchment he was perusing, as if calculating his time.  Then he looked up again and spoke.