?"

"Captain Levison."

"Who?" repeated Lady Isabel, in a sharp tone of consternation.

"Captain Levison. Sir Peter consents to see him, with a view to the
settlement of his liabilities, but Lady Levison declines to receive him
at the Park. So I offered to give him house-room at East Lynne for a few
days."

There is an old saying, "the heart leaping into the mouth;" and Lady
Isabel's leaped into hers. She grew dizzy at the words--her senses
seemed momentarily to desert her. Her first sensation was as if the dull
earth had opened and shown her a way into Paradise; her second, a lively
consciousness that Francis Levison ought not to be suffered to come
again into companionship with her. Mr. Carlyle continued to converse of
the man's embarrassments, of his own interview with Sir Peter and Lady
Levison; but Isabel was as one who heard not. She was debating the
question, how she could prevent his coming?

"Archibald," she presently said, "I do not wish Francis Levison to stay
at East Lynne."

"It will only be for a few days--perhaps but a day or two. Sir Peter
is in the humor to discharge the claims, and, the moment his resolve is
known, the ex-captain can walk on her majesty's dominions, an unmolested
man, free to go where he will."

"That may be," interrupted Lady Isabel, in an accent of impatience; "but
why should he come to our house?"

"I proposed it myself. I had no idea you would dislike his coming. Why
should you?"

"I don't like Francis Levison," she murmured. "That is, I don't care to
have him at East Lynne."

"My dear, I fear there is no help for it now; he is most likely on his
road, and will arrive to-morrow. I cannot turn him out again, after my
own voluntary invitation. Had I known it would be disagreeable to you, I
would not have proposed it."

"To-morrow!" she exclaimed, all the words that caught her ear. "Is he
coming to-morrow?"

"Being Sunday, a free day, he will be sure to take advantage of it. What
has he done that you should object to his coming? You did not say in
Boulogne that you disliked him."

"He had done nothing," was her faltering answer, feeling that her
grounds of opposition must melt under her one by one.

"Lady Levison appears to possess a very ill opinion of him," resumed Mr.
Carlyle. "She says she knew him in years gone by. She mentioned one or
two things which, if true, must be bad enough. But possibly she may be
prejudiced."

"She is prejudiced," said Isabel. "At le