No need to inquire further.  It was the Thorn of Richard’s memory.  His ungloved hand, raised to his hat, was as white as ever; more sparkling than ever, as it flashed in the street gaslight, was the diamond ring.  By the hand and ring alone Richard would have sworn to the man, had it been needful.

“Who is the other one?” he continued.

“Some gent as came down from London with him.  His name’s Drake.  Be you yellow, sailor, or be you scarlet-and-purple?”

“I am neither.  I am only a stranger, passing through the town.”

“On the tramp?”

“Tramp?  No.”  And Richard moved away, to make the best of his progress to East Lynne and report to Mr. Carlyle.

Now it happened, on that windy night, that Lady Isabel, her mind disordered, her brow fevered with its weight of care, stole out into the grounds, after the children had left her for the night, courting any discomfort she might meet.  As if they could, even for a moment, cool the fire within!  To the solitude of this very covered walk bent she her steps; and, not long had she paced it, when she descried some man advancing, in the garb of a sailor.  Not caring to be seen, she turned short off amidst the trees, intending to emerge again when he had passed.  She wondered who he was, and what brought him there.

But he did not pass.  He lingered in the walk, keeping her a prisoner.  A minute more and she saw him joined by Mrs. Carlyle.  They met with a loving embrace.

Embrace a strange man?  Mrs. Carlyle?  All the blood in Lady Isabel’s body rushed to her brain.  Was she, his second wife, false to him—­more shamelessly false than even herself had been, inasmuch as she had had the grace to quit him and East Lynne before—­as the servant girls say, when they change their sweethearts—­“taking up” with another?  The positive conviction that such was the case seized firm hold upon her fancy; her thoughts were in a tumult, her mind was a chaos.  Was there any small corner of rejoicing in her heart that it was so?  And yet, what was it to her?  It could not alter by one iota her own position—­it could not restore to her the love she had forfeited.

Coupled lovingly together, they were now sauntering up the walk, the sailor’s arm thrown round the waist of Mrs. Carlyle.  “Oh!  The shameless woman!” Ay; she could be bitter enough upon graceless doings when enacted by another.

But, what was her astonishment when she saw Mr. Carlyle advance, and that his appearance caused not the slightest change in their gracelessness, for the sailor’s arm was not withdrawn.  Two or three minutes they stood—­the three—­talking together in a group.  Then the good-nights were exchanged, the sailor left them, and Mr. Carlyle, his own arm lovingly pressed where the other’s had been, withdrew with his wife.  The truth—­that it was Barbara’s brother—­dashed to the mind of Lady Isabel.

“Was I mad?” she cried, with a hollow laugh. “She false to him?  No, no; that fate was reserved for me alone!”