“I shall not shock you, then by some tidings I bring you regarding him,” returned Lord Mount Severn.

“The greatest shock to me would be to hear that I should ever again be subjected to the sight of him,” she answered.

“He is married.”

“Heaven have pity on his poor wife!” was all the comment of Lady Isabel.

“He has married Alice Challoner.”

She lifted her head, then, in simple surprise.  “Alice?  Not Blanche?”

“The story runs that he has played Blanche very false.  That he has been with her much during the last three or four months, leading on her expectations; and then suddenly proposed for her younger sister.  I know nothing of the details myself; it is not likely; and I heard nothing, until one evening at the club I saw the announcement of the marriage for the following day at St. George’s.  I was at the church the next morning before he was.”

“Not to stop it; not to intercept the marriage!” breathlessly uttered the Lady Isabel.

“Certainly not.  I had no power to attempt anything of the sort.  I went to demand an answer to my question—­what he had done with you, and where you were.  He gave me this address, but said he knew nothing of your movements since December.”

There was a long silence.  The earl appeared to be alternately ruminating and taking a survey of the room.  Isabel sat with her head down.

“Why did you seek me out?” she presently broke forth.  “I am not worth it.  I have brought enough disgrace upon your name.”

“And upon your husband’s and upon your children’s,” he rejoined, in the most severe manner, for it was not in the nature of the Earl of Mount Severn to gloss over guilt.  “Nevertheless it is incumbent upon me, as your nearest blood relative, to see after you, now that you are alone again, and to take care, as far as I can, that you do not lapse lower.”

He might have spared her that stab.  But she scarcely understood him.  She looked at him, wondering whether she did understand.

“You have not a shilling in the world,” he resumed.  “How do you propose to live?”

“I have some money yet.  When—­”

“His money?” sharply and haughtily interposed the earl.

“No,” she indignantly replied.  “I am selling my trinkets.  Before they are all gone, I shall look out to get a living in some way; by teaching, probably.”

“Trinkets!” repeated Lord Mount Severn.  “Mr. Carlyle told me that you carried nothing away with you from East Lynne.”

“Nothing that he had given me.  These were mine before I married.  You have seen Mr. Carlyle, then?” she faltered.

“Seen him?” echoed the indignant earl.  “When such a blow was dealt him by a member of my family, could I do less than hasten to East Lynne to tender my sympathies?  I went with another subject too—­to discover what could have been the moving springs of your conduct; for I protest, when the black tidings reached me, I believed that you must have gone mad.  You were one of the last whom I should have feared to trust.  But I learned nothing, and Carlyle was as ignorant as I. How could you strike him such a blow?”