“Why did he give the invitation?  Did I hear you aright, Madame Vine?  Did Mr. Carlyle know he was a reprobate?  And, if he had known it, was not Isabel his wife?  Could he dream of danger for her?  If it pleased Mr. Carlyle to fill East Lynne with bad men to-morrow, what would that be to me—­to my safety, to my well-being, to my love and allegiance to my husband?  What were you thinking of, madame?”

“Thinking of?” She leaned her troubled head upon her hand.  Mrs. Carlyle resumed,—­

“Sitting alone in the drawing-room just now, and thinking matters over, it did seem to me very like what people call a fatality.  That man, I say, was the one who wrought the disgrace, the trouble to Mr. Carlyle’s family; and it is he, I have every reason now to believe, who brought a nearly equal disgrace and trouble upon mine.  Did you know—­” Mrs. Carlyle lowered her voice—­“that I have a brother in evil—­in shame?”

Lady Isabel did not dare to answer that she did know it.  Who had there been likely to inform her, the strange governess of the tale of Richard Hare!

“So the world calls it—­shame,” pursued Barbara, growing excited.  “And it is shame, but not as the world thinks it.  The shame lies with another, who had thrust the suffering and shame upon Richard; and that other is Francis Levison.  I will tell you the tale.  It is worth the telling.”

She could only dispose herself to listen; but she wondered what Francis Levison had to do with Richard Hare.

“In the days long gone by, when I was little more than a child, Richard took to going after Afy Hallijohn.  You have seen the cottage in the wood; she lived there with her father and Joyce.  It was very foolish for him; but young men will be foolish.  As many more went after her, or wanted to go after her, as she could count upon her ten fingers.  Among them, chief of them, more favored even than Richard, was one called Thorn, by social position a gentleman.  He was a stranger, and used to ride over in secret.  The night of the murder came—­the dreadful murder, when Hallijohn was shot down dead.  Richard ran away; testimony was strong against him, and the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder against Richard Hare the younger.’  We never supposed but what he was guilty—­of the act, mind you, not of the intention; even mamma, who so loved him, believed he had done it; but she believed it was the result of accident, not design.  Oh, the trouble that has been the lot of my poor mamma!” cried Barbara, clasping her hands.  “And she had no one to sympathize with her—­no one, no one!  I, as I tell you, was little more than a child; and papa, who might have done it, took part against Richard.  It went on for three or four years, the sorrow, and there was no mitigation.  At the end of that period Richard came for a few hours to West Lynne—­came in secret—­and we learnt for the first time that he was not guilty.  The man who did the deed was Thorn; Richard