“Do you wish to keep awake all night, you rebel?” cried Barbara, fondly looking on him.

A loud crow, by way of answer.  Perhaps it was intended to intimate he did.  She clasped him to her with a sudden gesture of rapture, a sound of love, and devoured his pretty face with kisses.  Then she took him in her arms, putting him to sit upright, and approached Madame Vine.

“Did you ever see a more lovely child?”

“A fine baby, indeed,” she constrained herself to answer; and she could have fancied it her own little Archibald over again when he was a baby.  “But he is not much like you.”

“He is the very image of my darling husband.  When you see Mr. Carlyle—­” Barbara stopped, and bent her ear, as listening.

“Mr. Carlyle is probably a handsome man!” said poor Lady Isabel, believing that the pause was made to give her an opportunity of putting in an observation.

“He is handsome:  but that is the least good about him.  He is the most noble man!  Revered, respected by everyone; I may say loved!  The only one who could not appreciate him was his wife; and we must assume that she did not, by the ending that came.  However she could leave him—­how she could even look at another, after calling Mr. Carlyle husband—­will always be a marvel to those who know him.”

A bitter groan—­and it nearly escaped her lips.

“That certainly is the pony carriage,” cried Barbara, bending her ear again.  “If so, how very early Mr. Carlyle is home!  Yes, I am sure it is the sound of the wheels.”

How Lady Isabel sat she scarcely knew; how she concealed her trepidation she never would know.  A pause:  an entrance to the hall; Barbara, baby in arms, advanced to the drawing-room door, and a tall form entered.  Once more Lady Isabel was in the presence of her sometime husband.

He did not perceive that any one was present, and he bent his head and fondly kissed his wife.  Isabel’s jealous eyes were turned upon them.  She saw Barbara’s passionate, lingering kiss in return, she heard her fervent, whispered greeting, “My darling!” and she watched him turn to press the same fond kisses on the rosy open lips of his child.  Isabel flung her hand over her face.  Had she bargained for this?  It was part of the cross she had undertaken to carry, and she must bear it.

Mr. Carlyle came forward and saw her.  He looked somewhat surprised.  “Madame Vine,” said Barbara; and he held out his hand and welcomed her in the same cordial, pleasant manner that his wife had done.  She put her shaking hand into his; there was no help for it.  Little thought Mr. Carlyle that that hand had been tenderly clasped in his a thousand times—­that it was the one pledged to him at the altar of Castle Marling.

She sat down on her chair again, unable to stand, feeling as though every drop of blood within her had left her body.  It had certainly left her face.  Mr. Carlyle made a few civil inquiries as to her journey, but she did not dare to raise her eyes to his, as she breathed forth the answers.