‘I’m going to her at once!’ cried Jem, beginning to rush off; but Louis caught and imprisoned his arm.

’Not so fast, sir!  You are to see her.  I promise you shall see her if you wish it, but it must be in my aunt’s way.’

‘Let me go, I say!’

’When I have walked five miles in your service, you won’t afford me an arm to help me back.  I am not a horse with wings, and I won’t be Cupid’s post except on my own terms.  Come back.’

‘I don’t stir till I have heard the state of the case.’

’Yes, you do; for all the sportsmen will be coming home, and my aunt would not for all the world that Mr. Mansell caught you on the forbidden ground.’

’How can you give in to such shuffling nonsense!  If I am to claim Isabel openly, why am I not to visit her openly?  You have yielded to that woman’s crooked policy.  I don’t trust you!’

’When you are her son, you may manage her as you please.  Just now she has us in her power, and can impose conditions.  Come on; and if you are good, you shall hear.’

Drawing James along with him through the beechwood glades, he began, ’You would have been more insane still if you had guessed at my luck.  I found Isabel alone.  Mrs. Mansell had taken the girls to some juvenile fete, and Delaford was discreet enough not to rouse my aunt from her letters.  I augured well from the happy conjunction.’

‘Go on; don’t waste time in stuff.’

‘Barkis is willing, then.  Is that enough to the point?’

’Fitzjocelyn, you never had any feelings yourself, and therefore you trifle with those of others.’

’I beg your pardon.  It was a shame!  Jem, you may be proud.  She trusts you completely, and whatever you think sufficient, she regards as ample.’

’Like her!  Only too like her.  Such confidence makes one feel a redoubled responsibility.’

‘I thought I had found something at which you could not grumble.’

‘How does she look?  How do they treat her?’

’Apparently they have not yet fed her on bread and water.  No; seriously, I must confess that she looked uncommonly well and lovely!  Never mind, Jem; I verily believe that, in spite of absence and all that, she had never been so happy in her life.  If any description could convey the sweetness of voice and manner when she spoke of you!  I could not look in her face.  Those looks can only be for you.  We talked it over, but she heeded no ways and means; it was enough that you were satisfied.  She says the subject has never been broached since the flight from Northwold, and that Lady Conway’s kindness never varies; and she told me she had little fear but that her dear mamma would be prevailed on to give sanction enough to hinder her from feeling as if she were doing wrong, or setting a bad example to her sisters.  They know nothing of it; but Walter, who learnt it no one knows how, draws the exemplary moral, that it serves his mother right for inflicting a tutor on him.’