he went boldly
to East Lynne in eager anxiety, ostensibly to make a call on Lady
Isabel--and a very restless one it was--contriving to make Mr. Carlyle
understand that she wanted to see him alone. He went out with her when
she departed, and accompanied her as far as the park gates, the two
evidently absorbed in earnest converse. Lady Isabel's jealous eye saw
that. The communication Barbara had to make was, that Captain Thorn had
let fall the avowal that he had once been "in trouble," though of its
nature there was no indication given. Another journey of hers took the
scrap of news that she had discovered he knew Swainson well. Part
of this, nay, perhaps the whole of it, Mr. Carlyle had found out for
himself; nevertheless he always received Barbara with vivid interest.
Richard Hare was related to Miss Carlyle, and if his innocence could be
made clear in the sight of men, it would be little less gratifying
to them than to the Hares. Of Richard's innocence, Mr. Carlyle now
entertained little, if any doubt, and he was becoming impressed with the
guilt of Captain Thorn. The latter spoke mysteriously of a portion of
his past life--when he could be brought to speak of it at all--and he
bore evidently some secret that he did not care to have alluded to.

But now look at the mean treachery of that man, Francis Levison! The few
meetings that Lady Isabel did witness between her husband and Barbara
would have been quite enough to excite her anger and jealousy, to
trouble her peace; but, in addition, Francis Levison took care to tell
her of those she did not see. It pleased him--he could best tell with
what motive--to watch the movements of Mr. Carlyle and Barbara. There
was a hedge pathway through the fields, on the opposite side of the road
to the residence of Justice Hare, and as Mr. Carlyle walked down the
road to business in his unsuspicion (not one time in fifty did he choose
to ride; the walk to and fro kept him in health, he said), Captain
Levison would be strolling down like a serpent behind the hedge,
watching all his movements, watching his interviews with Barbara,
did any take place, watching Mr. Carlyle turn into the grove, as he
sometimes did, and perhaps watch Barbara run out of the house to meet
him. It was all related over, and with miserable exaggeration, to Lady
Isabel, whose jealousy, as a natural sequence, grew feverish in its
extent.

It is scarcely necessary to explain, that of this feeling of Lady
Isabel's