“Miss Isabel!”

She started, looked up, and discovered—­Alfred Hardyman.

He was dressed in a perfectly-made travelling suit of light brown, with a peaked felt hat of a darker shade of the same color, which, in a picturesque sense, greatly improved his personal appearance.  His pleasure at discovering Isabel gave the animation to his features which they wanted on ordinary occasions.  He sat his horse, a superb hunter, easily and gracefully.  His light amber-colored gloves fitted him perfectly.  His obedient servant, on another magnificent horse, waited behind him.  He looked the impersonation of rank and breeding—­of wealth and prosperity.  What a contrast, in a woman’s eyes, to the shy, pale, melancholy man, in the ill-fitting black clothes, with the wandering, uneasy glances, who stood beneath him, and felt, and showed that he felt, his inferior position keenly!  In spite of herself, the treacherous blush flew over Isabel’s face, in Moody’s presence, and with Moody’s eyes distrustfully watching her.

“This is a piece of good fortune that I hardly hoped for,” said Hardyman, his cool, quiet, dreary way of speaking quickened as usual, in Isabel’s presence.  “I only got back from France this morning, and I called on Lady Lydiard in the hope of seeing you.  She was not at home—­and you were in the country—­and the servants didn’t know the address.  I could get nothing out of them, except that you were on a visit to a relation.”  He looked at Moody while he was speaking.  “Haven’t I seen you before?” he said, carelessly.  “Yes; at Lady Lydiard’s.  You’re her steward, are you not?  How d’ye do?” Moody, with h is eyes on the ground, answered silently by a bow.  Hardyman, perfectly indifferent whether Lady Lydiard’s steward spoke or not, turned on his saddle and looked admiringly at Isabel.  “I begin to think I am a lucky man at last,” he went on with a smile.  “I was jogging along to my farm, and despairing of ever seeing Miss Isabel again—­and Miss Isabel herself meets me at the roadside!  I wonder whether you are as glad to see me as I am to see you?  You won’t tell me—­eh?  May I ask you something else?  Are you staying in our neighborhood?”

There was no alternative before Isabel but to answer this last question.  Hardyman had met her out walking, and had no doubt drawn the inevitable inference—­although he was too polite to say so in plain words.

“Yes, sir,” she answered, shyly, “I am staying in this neighborhood.”

“And who is your relation?” Hardyman proceeded, in his easy, matter-of-course way.  “Lady Lydiard told me, when I had the pleasure of meeting you at her house, that you had an aunt living in the country.  I have a good memory, Miss Isabel, for anything that I hear about You!  It’s your aunt, isn’t it?  Yes?  I know everybody about hew.  What is your aunt’s name?”