He was taking off the “ugly thing” as she spoke and began to twirl it round his hand.  “Disguise?  Oh, no; I have no creditors in the immediate neighborhood of East Lynne.”

False as ever it was worn as a disguise and he knew it.

“Is Mr. Carlyle at home?” she inquired.

“No.”  Then, after a pause—­“I expect he is more agreeably engaged.”

The tone, a most significant one, brought the tingling blood to the cheeks of Lady Isabel.  She wished to preserve a dignified silence, and did for a few moments; but the jealous question broke out,—­

“Engaged in what manner?”

“As I came by Hare’s house just now, I saw two people, a gentleman and a young lady, coupled lovingly together, enjoying a tete-a-tete by moonlight.  Unless I am mistaken, he was the favored individual whom you call lord and master.”

Lady Isabel almost gnashed her teeth; the jealous doubts which had been tormenting her all the evening were confirmed.  That the man whom she hated—­yes, in her blind anger, she hated him then—­should so impose upon her, should excuse himself by lies, lies base and false as he was, from accompanying her out, on purpose to pass the hours with Barbara Hare!  Had she been alone in the carriage, a torrent of passion had probably escaped her.

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dared to put his arm around her, to draw her to his side; to whisper that his love was left to her, if another’s was withdrawn.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.