It was written by Miss Pink.  The first lines contained an urgent entreaty to keep the circumstances connected with the loss of the five hundred pounds the strictest secret from everyone in general, and from Hardyman in particular.  The reasons assigned for making the strange request were next expressed in these terms:  “My niece Isabel is, I am happy to inform you, engaged to be married to Mr. Hardyman.  If the slightest hint reached him of her having been associated, no matter how cruelly and unjustly, with a suspicion of theft, the marriage would be broken off, and the result to herself and to everybody connected with her, would be disgrace for the rest of our lives.”

On the blank space at the foot of the page a few words were added in Isabel’s writing:  “Whatever changes there may be in my life, your place in my heart is one that no other person can fill:  it is the place of my dearest friend.  Pray write and tell me that you are not distressed and not angry.  My one anxiety is that you should remember what I have always told you about the state of my own feelings.  My one wish is that you will still let me love you and value you, as I might have loved and valued a brother.”

The letter dropped from Moody’s hand.  Not a word—­not even a sigh—­passed his lips.  In tearless silence he submitted to the pang that wrung him.  In tearless silence he contemplated the wreck of his life.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE narrative returns to South Morden, and follows the events which attended Isabel’s marriage engagement.

To say that Miss Pink, inflated by the triumph, rose, morally speaking, from the earth and floated among the clouds, is to indicate faintly the effect produced on the ex-schoolmistress when her niece first informed her of what had happened at the farm.  Attacked on one side by her aunt, and on the other by Hardyman, and feebly defended, at the best, by her own doubts and misgivings, Isabel ended by surrendering at discretion.  Like thousands of other women in a similar position, she was in the last degree uncertain as to the state of her own heart.  To what extent she was insensibly influenced by Hardyman’s commanding position in believing herself to be sincerely attached to him, it was beyond her power of self-examination to discover.  He doubly dazzled her by his birth and by his celebrity.  Not in England only, but throughout Europe, he was a recognized authority on his own subject.  How could she—­how could any woman—­resist the influence of his steady mind, his firmness of purpose, his manly resolution to owe everything to himself and nothing to his rank, set off as these attractive qualities were by the outward and personal advantages which exercise an ascendancy of their own?  Isabel was fascinated, and yet Isabel was not at ease.  In her lonely moments she was troubled by regretful thoughts of Moody, which perplexed and irritated her.