nt Severn received. He was little less
thunderstruck than Miss Corny, and came steaming to England the same
day, thereby missing his wife's letter, which gave _her_ version of the
affair. He met Mr. Carlyle and Lady Isabel in London, where they were
staying at one of the west-end hotels--only for a day or two, however,
for they were going further. Isabel was alone when the earl was
announced.

"What is the meaning of this, Isabel?" began he, without the
circumlocution of greeting. "You are married?"

"Yes," she answered, with her pretty, innocent blush. "Some time ago."

"And to Carlyle, the lawyer! How did it come about?"

Isabel began to think how it did come about, sufficiently to give a
clear answer. "He asked me," she said, "and I accepted him. He came to
Castle Marling at Easter, and asked me then. I was very much surprised."

The earl looked at her attentively. "Why was I kept in ignorance of
this, Isabel?"

"I did not know you were kept in ignorance of it. Mr. Carlyle wrote to
you, as did Lady Mount Severn."

Lord Mount Severn was a man in the dark, and looked like it. "I suppose
this comes," soliloquized he, aloud, "of your father's having allowed
the gentleman to dance daily attendance at East Lynne. And so you fell
in love with him."

"Indeed, no!" answered she, in an amused tone. "I never thought of such
a thing as falling in love with Mr. Carlyle."

"Then don't you love him?" abruptly asked the earl.

"No!" she whispered, timidly; "but I like him much--oh, very much! And
he is so good to me!"

The earl stroked his chin and mused. Isabel had destroyed the only
reasonable conclusion he had been able to come to as to the motives for
the hasty marriage. "If you do not love Mr. Carlyle, how comes it that
you are so wise in the distinction between 'liking' and 'love?' It
cannot be that you love anybody else?"

The question turned home, and Isabel turned crimson. "I shall love my
husband in time," was all she answered, as she bent her head, and played
nervously with her watch chain.

"My poor child!" involuntarily exclaimed the earl. But he was one who
liked to fathom the depth of everything. "Who has been staying at Castle
Marling since I left?" he asked sharply.

"Mrs. Levison came down."

"I alluded to gentlemen--young men."

"Only Francis Levison," she replied.

"Francis Levison! You have never been so foolish as to fall in love with
_him_?"

The question was so pointed, so abrupt, and