It is unworthy
of you to have done so now."

"Do you realize to whom you are speaking, and that what I have done
has been through friendship for you?"

Isabel shook her head resolvedly. "Your friendship for me cannot
exact of you that you should be untrue to yourself and false to
others. You say that you refuse to speak to Rowan on the street.
You say that you have broken up the friendship between Mr. Osborn
and him. Rowan is the truest friend Mr. Osborn has ever had; you
know this. But in breaking off that friendship, you have done more
than you have realized: you have ended my friendship with you."

"And this is gratitude for my devotion to you and my willingness to
fight your battles!" said Mrs. Osborn, rising.

"You cannot fight my battles without fighting Rowan's. My wish to
marry him or not to marry him is one thing; my willingness to see
him ruined is another."

Isabel drove home. She rang the bell as though she were a
stranger. When her maid met her at the door, overjoyed at her
return, she asked for her grandmother and passed at once into her
parlors. As she did so, Mrs. Conyers came through the hall,
dressed to go out. At the sound of Isabel's voice, she, who having
once taken hold of a thing never let it go, dropped her parasol;
and as she stooped to pick it up, the blood rushed to her face.

"I wish to speak to you," said Isabel, coming quickly out into the
hall as though to prevent her grandmother's exit. Her voice was
low and full of shame and indignation.

"I am at your service for a little while," said Mrs. Conyers,
carelessly; "later I am compelled to go out." She entered the
parlors, followed by Isabel, and, seating herself in the nearest
chair, finished buttoning her glove.

Isabel sat silent a moment, shocked by her reception. She had not
realized that she was no longer the idol of that household and of
its central mind; and we are all loath to give up faith in our
being loved still, where we have been loved ever. She was not
aware that since she had left home she had been disinherited. She
would not have cared had she known; but she was now facing what was
involved in the disinheritance--dislike; and in the beginning of
dislike there was the ending of the old awe with which the
grandmother had once regarded the grandchild.

But she came quickly back to the grave matter uppermost in her
mind. "Grandmother," she said, "I received a few days ago a letter
from Kate Osborn.