Had they gone out and left Allison alone?  Surely, since there was no one else.  Fortune favoured her if she wished to see him.  But did she dare?

Isabel was nothing if not courageous.  Arming herself with an excuse in the shape of the violin, she sallied forth and made her way to Kent’s, meeting no one upon the well-worn path.

As it happened, Allison was on the lower veranda, walking back and forth, persistently accompanied by the Crosby pup.  Assisted by the Colonel and Doctor Jack, he had come down without accident, and had promised to go out in the car with them a little later.

When he saw Isabel coming up the walk, he stopped in astonishment.  He did not go to meet her, but offered her a chair and said, with formal politeness:  “How do you do?  This is an unexpected pleasure.”

“I brought this,” began Isabel, offering him the violin.

He took it with a smile.  “Thank you.  I don’t know that I shall ever use it again, but I am glad to have it.”

There was a pause and Isabel moved restlessly in her chair.  Then she slipped the ring from her finger.  “Do you want this now?” she asked.  Her face was a shade paler.

Allison laughed.  “Indeed I don’t.  Whom could I give it to?”

“Rose,” suggested Isabel, maliciously.

Allison sighed and turned his face away.  “She wouldn’t take it,” he said, sadly.

Isabel slipped it back on her finger, evidently relieved.  “I’m glad you’re better,” she went on, clearing her throat.

“Thank you.  So am I.”

“I saw your father, out in the car.  The Doctor was with him.”

“Yes.  They’re coming back for me in a little while.”

“It’s a lovely car.  The Doctor brought me home in it last night, from Crosby’s.”

“So he told me.”  Allison did not see fit to say just how much Doctor Jack had told him.  He smiled a little at the recollection of the young man’s remorseful confession.

“I told them,” continued Isabel, “that I thought it was mine—­that your father had given it to me, but it seems I was mistaken.”

“It seems so,” Allison agreed.  “Dad gave it to the Doctor this morning.”

Isabel repressed a bitter cry of astonishment.  “For keeps?”

“Yes, for keeps.  It’s little enough to give him after all he’s done for me.  We both wanted him to have it.”

“You could get another, couldn’t you?”

“I suppose so, if I wanted it.  People can usually get things they want, if they are intangible.”

“I wanted to tell you,” resumed Isabel, “that I was sorry I acted the way I did the last time I was here.”

“Don’t think of it,” replied Allison, kindly.  “It was very natural.”

“It was all a great shock to me, and I was lame, and—­and—­I wish everything could be as it was before,” she concluded, with a faint flush creeping into her face.

“That is the great tragedy of life, Isabel—­that things can never be as they were before.  Sometimes they’re worse, sometimes better, but the world is never the same.”