; not with the hardihood displayed by the two young men,
but with quite sufficiently evident admiration.

"What a lovely girl!" thought he to himself. "Who can she be, sitting
there alone?"

All at once a recollection flashed into his mind; he raised his hat and
extended his hand, his fascinating smile in full play.

"I certainly cannot be mistaken. Have I the honor of once more meeting
Lady Isabel Vane?"

She rose from the seat, and allowed him to take her hand, answering a
few words at random, for her wits seemed wool-gathering.

"I beg your pardon--I should have said Lady Isabel Carlyle. Time has
elapsed since we parted, and in the pleasure of seeing you again so
unexpectedly, I thought of you as you were then."

She sat down again, the brilliant flush of emotion dying away upon her
cheeks. It was the loveliest face Francis Levison had seen since he saw
hers, and he thought so as he gazed at it.

"What can have brought you to this place?" he inquired, taking a seat
beside her.

"I have been ill," she explained, "and am ordered to the sea-side. We
should not have come here but for Mrs. Ducie; we expected to meet her.
Mr. Carlyle only left me this morning."

"Mrs. Ducie is off to Ems. I see them occasionally. They have been
fixtures in Paris for some time. You do indeed look ill," he abruptly
added, in a tone of sympathy, "alarmingly ill. Is there anything I can
do for you?"

She was aware that she looked unusually ill at that moment, for the
agitation and surprise of meeting him were fading away, leaving her face
an ashy whiteness. Exceedingly vexed and angry with herself did she feel
that the meeting should have power to call forth emotion. Until that
moment she was unconscious that she retained any sort of feeling for
Captain Levison.

"Perhaps I have ventured out too early," she said, in a tone that would
seem to apologize for her looks: "I think I will return. I shall meet my
servant, no doubt. Good-morning, Captain Levison."

"But indeed you do not appear fit to walk alone," he remonstrated. "You
must allow me to see you safely home."

Drawing her hand within his own quite as a matter of course, as he had
done many a time in days gone by, he proceeded to assist her down the
pier. Lady Isabel, conscious of her own feelings, felt that it was not
quite the thing to walk thus familiarly with him, but he was a sort of
relation of the family--a connection, at any rate--and she could find no
ready excus