eard scraps of their conversation now and then in those
meetings, and so gathered my information."

"You told a different tale to me, Sir Francis," was her remark, as she
turned her indignant eyes toward him.

Sir Francis laughed.

"All stratagems are fair in love and war."

She dared not immediately trust herself to reply, and a silence ensued.
Sir Francis broke it, pointing with his left thumb over his shoulder in
the direction of the cradle.

"What have you named that young article there?"

"The name which ought to have been his by inheritance--'Francis
Levison,'" was her icy answer.

"Let's see--how old is he now?"

"He was born on the last day of August."

Sir Francis threw up his arms and stretched himself, as if a fit of
idleness had overtaken him; then advanced to the cradle and pulled down
the clothes.

"Who is he like, Isabel? My handsome self?"

"Were he like you in spirit, I would pray that he might die ere he could
speak, or think!" she burst forth. And then remembering the resolution
marked out for herself, subsided outwardly into calmness again.

"What else?" retorted Sir Francis. "You know my disposition pretty well
by this time, Isabel, and may be sure that if you deal out small change
to me, you will get it back again with interest."

She made no reply. Sir Francis put the clothes back over the sleeping
child, returned to the fire, and stood a few moments with his back to
it.

"Is my room prepared for me, do you know?" he presently asked.

"No, it is not," she quietly rejoined. "These apartments are mine now;
they have been transferred into my name, and they can never again afford
you accommodation. Will you be so obliging--I am not strong--as to hand
me that writing case?"

Sir Francis walked to the table she indicated, which was at the far end
of the great barn of a room, and taking the writing-case from it, gave
it to her.

She reached her keys from the stand at her elbow, unlocked the case, and
took from it some bank-notes.

"I received these from you a month ago," she said. "They came by post."

"And never had the grace to acknowledge them," he returned, in a sort of
mock reproachful tone.

"Forty pounds. That was the amount, was it not?"

"I believe so."

"Allow me to return them to you. Count them."

"Return them to me--for what?" inquired Sir Francis, in amazement.

"I have no longer anything whatever to do with you in any way. Do not
make my arm ache, holding ou