Isobel

“ Those would be days of agony for himself as well as for her, and yet he would be near, always near, the woman he loved. And little Isobel would be safe in Rookie’s cabin. If anything happened—
His hands gripped the edges of the sledge at the thought that leaped into his brain. It was Pelliter’s thought. If anything happened to Isobel the little girl would be his own, forever and forever. He thrust the thought from him as if it were the plague itself. Isobel would live. He would make her live, If she died—
McTabb heard the low cry that broke from his lips. ”

“ Left alone, Isobel felt as though some great shock had passed over her. She saw only too plainly that Belle did not want to come—did not care for her society or value her friendship; and the bitterness of the knowledge seemed almost greater than she could [229] bear. She walked slowly to the cliff, and climbing part of the way up, sat down in a sheltered nook, hidden from sight of the beach; then putting her head on her hands, she let loose the flood-gates of her grief. God help us when we first find out that those we care for no longer respond to our love. ”

“ Greatson. To be your guardian, Isobel, would not be seemly. That you will better understand—to-morrow."
"Indeed!" she protested, "I would sooner hear it now from your own lips—if, indeed, it must be so!"
He shook his head very slowly, but with a decision more finite than the most emphatic negation which words could have framed.
"I must go away, Isobel," he said, "and you and I must remain apart. I will only ask you to remember me by this. I am the man your mother loved. Nothing else in my life is worth considering—but that. I am one of those with whom fate has dealt a little hardly. ”

“ It was a lovely autumn morning when Isobel, with a bright birthday face, looked out of the open window of her pretty bedroom, to see her island shining in the early sunshine against the sea, and the shadows falling over the lawns and gardens of the beautiful spot which was now her home.
"I'm the luckiest girl in the world!" she thought, as she ran down to the breakfast table, to find her plate filled with interesting-looking packages, and the prettiest white pony waiting for her outside the front steps, with a new side-saddle, quite ready for her to learn to ride. ”

“ Isobel would have risen in her excitement, had not Elsie leaped to her feet.
“Oh, Isobel,” she cried, all a-quiver with disdain, “can you not for once conquer the self that is destroying your very soul? Neither by word nor act shall you interfere between Arthur Courtenay and his duty. Would you have him cling ignobly to life like that poor dandy whom he has sent to herd with savages? Be sure he has not forgotten those who are beholden to him. We are his first care. ”

“ Godfrey, by a kind of instinct, sped at once to the willow log by the stream, where, through an outreaching of the long arm of coincidence, he found Isobel seated. After casually remarking that the swallows were flying neither high nor low that day, but as it were in mid-air, she added that she had not seen him for a long while.
“No, you haven’t—say for three years,” he answered, and detailed his tribulations.
“Ah!” said Isobel, “that’s always the way; one is never left at leisure to follow one’s own fancies in this world. ”

“ Isobel's lips were quivering, and I dared make no effort to console her. The Archduchess came suddenly across the room to us, and bent affectionately over Isobel.
"My dear child," she said, "you are overtired. Go and talk to Adelaide. She is alone in the music-room. I have something to say to Mr. Greatson."
Isobel rose and left us at once. The Archduchess took her place. She was carrying a fan of black ostrich feathers, and she waved it languidly for some time as though in deep thought. ”

“ Isobel, with her hands full of flowers, flitted in and out amongst the rose-bushes, laughing and talking with all the invincible gaiety of light-hearted youth, and Arthur hung all the while about her, his eyes following her every movement, telling her all the while by every action and look—if indeed the time had come for her to discern such things—all that our compact forbade him to utter. ”

“ I addressed myself more particularly to him.
"Allan and I are elderly persons compared with you, Arthur," I said, "but we might still be described at a stretch as young men. If we decide to remain Isobel's guardians, there is a further and a deeper duty devolving upon us than the obvious one of treating her with all respect. It is possible that she might come to feel a preference for one of us—a sense of gratitude, the natural sentiment of her coming womanhood, even the fact of continual propinquity might encourage it. Isobel is charming; she will be beautiful. ”

“ Then Marjory stepped out on the bartisan, not to listen, for her spirit was superior to artifice; and, leaning over the bartisan, she soon recognised the voices of Isobel and Ogilvy; nor could she escape the words—
"I loved her for her own sake," said he, "before I loved you, Isobel; and now I love her as your sister. But I shall have no peace in my wedded life with you, save on the condition that you love her also; for my conscience tells me I have not done by Sweet Marjory what is deemed according to the honour of man. You see what your power has been, Isobel. ”

“ I had not at that time learned what I learned later, and have already indicated, that my own foolish silence had wounded Isobel as deeply as her subsequent engagement to Eric Coverly had wounded me.
The psychology of a woman is intriguing in its very naïveté, and now as she stood before me, slim and graceful in her well-cut walking costume, a quick flicker of red flaming in her cheeks and her eyes alight with that sweet tantalizing look in which expectation and a hot pride were mingled, I wondered and felt sick at heart. ”

“ He spoke as one speaks of sacred things.
"All Europe," he said, "was pleased to discuss what was called the elopement of the Princess Isobel with Feurgéres the player. The gutter-press of the world filled their columns with sensational and scandalous lies. We at no time made any reply. There was no need. If now I break the silence of years it is that Isobel shall know the truth. It is you, Mr. Greatson, who will tell her this, and many other things. Listen carefully to what I say. The husband of the Princess Isobel was a blackguard, a man unfit for the society of any self-respecting woman. ”

“ The Princess Isobel left her husband accompanied only by a maid and a lady-in-waiting. They lived quietly in Paris until her husband procured his divorce. Then we were married, but until then we had not met since our parting at Waldenburg. Isobel's mother was ever a pure and holy woman. Let Isobel know that. Let her know that the greatest and most wonderful sacrifice a woman ever made was surely hers—when she denied herself her own daughter lest the merest shadow of shame should rest upon her in later years. It is for that same reason that I myself have kept away from Isobel. ”

“ Both had been thinking about Isobel, but the thoughts of neither consorted well with Vivien's "Poor Isobel!"
"Why not?" asked Harry.
"It means the loss of her situation, Harry."
"Of course! I never thought of that."
"Don't you young people be in too great a hurry," said Wellgood, with the satisfied smile of a man with a secret. "You're not going to be married the day after to-morrow! There's lots of time for something to turn up for Isobel. She needn't be pitied. Perhaps she may be tired of you and your ways, young woman, and glad to be rid of her job!" ”

“ It will be for Isobel's good. I myself shall stand sponsor for her to the world. I shall have discovered her in the convent here, and I shall take her back to her rightful place with triumph. All your difficulties then will vanish, your end will have been creditably and adequately attained. For myself the advantage is obvious. A difference to Adelaide it must make, but it will inevitably be less if the credit of her discovery remains with me. Have I made myself clear, Mr. Greatson?"
"Perfectly," I answered. "But you forget there is Isobel herself to be considered. She is no longer a child. ”

“ I exclaimed hoarsely.
"You can deny it as much as you like, if you think it worth while to perjure yourself," she replied coolly. "The truth remains. I have had a good deal of experience in such matters. You love Isobel, and I am not at all sure that Isobel does not love you."
"Madame," I protested, "such statements are absurd. I am no longer a young man. I am thirty-four years old. I have no longer any thought of marriage. Isobel is no more than a child. ”

“ Isobel was standing quite still in the middle of the room, her hands tightly clenched, a spot of colour aflame in her cheeks. Arthur, who had passed Lady Delahaye and me upon the stairs, had apparently just been told the object of her visit.
"Oh, I hate that woman!" Isobel exclaimed as I entered, "I hate her! I would rather die than go to her. I would rather go back to the convent. She looks at me as though I were something to be despised, something which should not be allowed to go alive upon the earth!" ”

“ He believed that he would find McTabb at the cabin and he would find the child there. So confident had he been that Isobel would live that he had not told McTabb of the uncle who had driven her from the old home in Montreal. He was glad that he had kept this to himself, for there would not be much of a chance of Rookie having found the child’s relative. And he made up his mind that he would not give the little Isobel up. He would keep her for himself. He would return to civilization, for he would have her to live for. He would build a home for her, with a garden and dogs and birds and flowers. ”

“ Isobel ordered a dream of a dress from London. Elma was in white. Mabel and Jean sent her white roses for her hair, the daintiest things. Cuthbert played up, and George Maclean found her plenty of partners. Isobel was quite kind. Mr. Leighton had looked sadly on Elma on seeing her off.
"Another bird spreading its wings," said he.
She looked very small and delicately dainty. Whereas Isobel, "Isobel was like a double begonia in full bloom," said Betty.
The begonia bloomed till a late hour effulgently.
Elma simply longed all the time for Mabel and Jean, and oh! "Love of our Lives," Adelaide Maud. ”

“ Will he never forgive? Can he allow his grandchild, the only kith and kin that is left to him, to be within a few miles and not wish at least to see her? Does he still think me the scheming adventuress that he called me in the first heat of his anger, and imagine I am plotting to get hold of his money? I would not touch one penny of it for myself, but I think it is only right and fair that Isobel should be sent to a really good school. ”

“ Isobel is the sort of girl whom fellows are bound to notice. Besides, being so jolly good-looking, she is such ripping good form, and that sort of thing. What you are proposing, Arnold, is simply that we should stand on one side altogether and leave Isobel for any other fellow who happens to come along."
"It scarcely amounts to that," I answered. "No other man is likely to see much of her while she is under our care. Afterwards, of course, the conditions are different. Our covenant, the covenant to which I am asking you to agree, comes to an end when she leaves us." ”

“ Allan declared gruffly. "Dear old chap, forgive me!"
"I am the brute who dangled the letter before his eyes," Arthur exclaimed bitterly, "and I am the only one of the three who has broken our covenant."
"My dear friends," I said slowly, "the things which are past, let us forget. Isobel has gone back to the life which claimed her. No barrier which human hand could rear could separate her from us so effectually and irrevocably as the mere fact that she has taken up the position which belongs to her. She is the Princess Isobel of Waldenburg, a king's grandchild. And we are—what we are! ”

“ XXIII AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
The long days and nights of inactivity which Billy had passed in the Indian camp had given him the opportunity to think more calmly of the tragedy which had come into his life, and with returning strength he had drawn himself partly out from the pit of hopelessness and despair into which he had fallen. Deane was dead. Isobel was dead. But the baby Isobel still lived; and in the hope of finding and claiming her for his own he built other dreams for himself out of the ashes of all that had gone for him. ”

“ Isobel had well expressed it when she said that he was climbing swiftly and bravely. Running along shelves, clambering ledges, following up the crevices that offered the best foothold, the tattered climber fought his dizzy way upwards, upwards, ever upwards!
Rarely, after some particularly hard scramble, he flung himself down on a shelf or on one of the steps of the Titanic ladder, to rest and summon energy for another upward rush. His good fortune seemed as marvelous as his endurance and daring. He never once slipped and never once had to turn back from an ascent. ”

“ By how different a path, in how different a mood, had poor Isobel attained to laying the same unction to her smarting soul!
Wellgood did not know at all how quickly matters had moved. He was still asking about the sin—the aberration; he was not up to date with Isobel's renunciation or Harry's comfortable penitence. Nor was he of the school that accepts such things without sound proof. "Lead us not into temptation" was all very well in church; in secular life, if you suspected a servant of dishonesty, you marked a florin and left it on the mantelpiece. ”

“ As the day dawned, and the morning sun, fresh from the east, threw in between the chinks of the shutters the virgin beams, Ogilvy felt the truth of the old saying, that every day vindicates its two conditions of good and evil. There was again a change in the versatile mind of the romantic youth; and Honour, pinkt out in those gaudy decorations woven by the busy spirits that move so cunningly the springs of man's thoughts in a conventional world, appeared before him. If Isobel was still the Devil Isobel, Honour was a smiling angel, even more beautiful than Sweet Marjory. ”