give you the benefit
of my idea. Your cousin did you once a great service. Have you never
guessed it?"

"He has done me many services."

"Yes; but one was much above the rest. He made you a rich woman."

"HE made me--?"

Madame Merle appearing to see herself successful, she went on more
triumphantly: "He imparted to you that extra lustre which was required
to make you a brilliant match. At bottom it's him you've to thank." She
stopped; there was something in Isabel's eyes.

"I don't understand you. It was my uncle's money."

"Yes; it was your uncle's money, but it was your cousin's idea. He
brought his father over to it. Ah, my dear, the sum was large!"

Isabel stood staring; she seemed to-day to live in a world illumined by
lurid flashes. "I don't know why you say such things. I don't know what
you know."

"I know nothing but what I've guessed. But I've guessed that."

Isabel went to the door and, when she had opened it, stood a moment
with her hand on the latch. Then she said--it was her only revenge: "I
believed it was you I had to thank!"

Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud
penance. "You're very unhappy, I know. But I'm more so."

"Yes; I can believe that. I think I should like never to see you again."

Madame Merle raised her eyes. "I shall go to America," she quietly
remarked while Isabel passed out.

CHAPTER LIII

It was not with surprise, it was with a feeling which in other
circumstances would have had much of the effect of joy, that as Isabel
descended from the Paris Mail at Charing Cross she stepped into the
arms, as it were--or at any rate into the hands--of Henrietta Stackpole.
She had telegraphed to her friend from Turin, and though she had not
definitely said to herself that Henrietta would meet her, she had felt
her telegram would produce some helpful result. On her long journey from
Rome her mind had been given up to vagueness; she was unable to question
the future. She performed this journey with sightless eyes and took
little pleasure in the countries she traversed, decked out though they
were in the richest freshness of spring. Her thoughts followed their
course through other countries--strange-looking, dimly-lighted, pathless
lands, in which there was no change of seasons, but only, as it seemed,
a perpetual dreariness of winter. She had plenty to think about; but
it was neither reflexion nor conscious purpose that filled her mind.
Disconnected v