iny--as she had done. She did not know who he really was, nor
what station in life his fiancee graced, but she did know that it was
his duty bravely and well to play his part in the drama of life,
whatever the role. She would not have him shirk. It was a horrible
thing, she had said with a shudder--none knew it better than she--but
she would be glad all her life to think that he had been no coward, and
had not cringed beneath the bitterest blow of fate, but had been strong
because she loved him and believed in him.

And so, since Paul Verdayne could not be absent from his father's side,
with many a reluctant thought the Boy set forth for Austria alone.

During his absence, Isabella--she who had been Isabella Waring--returned
from Blackheath a widow with two grown daughters--two more modern
editions of the original Isabella. The widow herself was graver and more
matronly, yet there was much of the old Isabella left, and Verdayne was
glad to see her. Lady Henrietta gave her a cordial invitation to visit
Verdayne Place, which she readily accepted, passing many pleasant hours
with the friend of her youth and helping to while away the long days
that Verdayne found so tiresome when the Boy was away from him.

Isabella was still "a good sort," and made life much less unbearable
than it might have been, but Verdayne often smiled to think of the
"puppy-love" he had once felt for her. It was amusing, now, and they
both laughed over it--though Isabella would not have been a woman had
she not wondered at times why her "old pal" had never married. There had
been chances, lots of them, for the girls had always liked the
blue-eyed, manly boy he had been, and petted and flattered and courted
him all through his youth. Why hadn't he chosen one of them? Had he
really cared so much for her--Isabella? And she often found herself
looking with much pitying tenderness upon the lonely man, whose heart
seemed so empty of the family ties it should have fostered--and
wondering.

Lady Henrietta, too, was set to thinking as the days went by, and
turning, one night, to her son, "Paul," she said, "I begin to think that
perhaps I was wrong in separating you from the girl you loved, and so
spoiling your life. Isabella would have made you a fairly good wife, I
believe, as wives go, and you must forgive your mother, who meant it for
the best. She did not see the way clearly, then, and so denied you the
one great desire of your heart"

She looked at