“I DID write, after I got out of the hospital, several times,” he said, “and never a word in answer, Aunt Rachel.  What was I to think when Phillippa wouldn’t answer my letters?”

“She never got one,” I cried.  “She wept her sweet eyes out over you.  SOMEBODY must have got those letters.”

And I knew then, and I know now, though never a shadow of proof have I, that Isabella Clark had got them—­and kept them.  That woman would stick at nothing.

“Well, we’ll sift that matter some other time,” said Owen impatiently.  “There are other things to think of now.  I must see Phillippa.”

“I’ll manage it for you,” I said eagerly; but, just as I spoke, the door opened and Isabella and Mark came in.  Never shall I forget the look on Isabella’s face.  I almost felt sorry for her.  She turned sickly yellow and her eyes went wild; they were looking at the downfall of all her schemes and hopes.  I didn’t look at Mark Foster, at first, and, when I did, there wasn’t anything to see.  His face was just as sallow and wooden as ever; he looked undersized and common beside Owen.  Nobody’d ever have picked him out for a bridegroom.

Owen spoke first.

“I want to see Phillippa,” he said, as if it were but yesterday that he had gone away.

All Isabella’s smoothness and policy had dropped away from her, and the real woman stood there, plotting and unscrupulous, as I’d always know her.

“You can’t see her,” she said desperate-like.  “She doesn’t want to see you.  You went and left her and never wrote, and she knew you weren’t worth fretting over, and she has learned to care for a better man.”

“I DID write and I think you know that better than most folks,” said Owen, trying hard to speak quiet.  “As for the rest, I’m not going to discuss it with you.  When I hear from Phillippa’s own lips that she cares for another man I’ll believe it—­and not before.”

“You’ll never hear it from her lips,” said I.

Isabella gave me a venomous look.

“You’ll not see Phillippa until she is a better man’s wife,” she said stubbornly, “and I order you to leave my house, Owen Blair!”

“No!”

It was Mark Foster who spoke.  He hadn’t said a word; but he came forward now, and stood before Owen.  Such a difference as there was between them!  But he looked Owen right in the face, quiet-like, and Owen glared back in fury.

“Will it satisfy you, Owen, if Phillippa comes down here and chooses between us?”

“Yes, it will,” said Owen.

Mark Foster turned to me.

“Go and bring her down,” said he.

Isabella, judging Phillippa by herself, gave a little moan of despair, and Owen, blinded by love and hope, thought his cause was won.  But I knew my dearie too well to be glad, and Mark Foster did, too, and I hated him for it.

I went up to my dearie’s room, all pale and shaking.  When I went in she came to meet me, like a girl going to meet death.