Returning from the garden gate, after taking leave of his visitor, Hardyman received from his servant a handful of letters which had just arrived for him.  Walking slowly over the lawn as he opened them, he found nothing but excuses for the absence of guests who had already accepted their invitations.  He had just thrust the letters into his pocket, when he heard footsteps behind him, and, looking round, found himself confronted by Moody.

“Hullo! have you come to lunch?” Hardyman asked, roughly.

“I have come here, sir, with a little gift for Miss Isabel, in honor of her marriage,” Moody answered quietly, “and I ask your permission to put it on the table, so that she may see it when your guests sit down to luncheon.”

He opened a jeweler’s case as he spoke, containing a plain gold bracelet with an inscription engraved on the inner side:  “To Miss Isabel Miller, with the sincere good wishes of Robert Moody.”

Plain as it was, the design of the bracelet was unusually beautiful.  Hardyman had noticed Moody’s agitation on the day when he had met Isabel near her aunt’s house, and had drawn his own conclusions from it.  His face darkened with a momentary jealousy as he looked at the bracelet.  “All right, old fellow!” he said, with contemptuous familiarity.  “Don’t be modest.  Wait and give it to her with your own hand.”

“No, sir,” said Moody “I would rather leave it, if you please, to speak for itself.”

Hardyman understood the delicacy of feeling which dictated those words, and, without well knowing why, resented it.  He was on the point of speaking, under the influence of this unworthy motive, when Isabel’s voice reached his ears, calling to him from the cottage.

Moody’s face contracted with a sudden expression of pain as he, too, recognized the voice.  “Don’t let me detain you, sir,” he said, sadly.  “Good-morning!”

Hardyman left him without ceremony.  Moody, slowly following, entered the tent.  All the preparations for the luncheon had been completed; nobody was there.  The places to be occupied by the guests were indicated by cards bearing their names.  Moody found Isabel’s card, and put his bracelet inside the folded napkin on her plate.  For a while he stood with his hand on the table, thinking.  The temptation to communicate once more with Isabel before he lost her forever, was fast getting the better of his powers of resistance.

“If I could persuade her to write a word to say she liked her bracelet,” he thought, “it would be a comfort when I go back to my solitary life.”  He tore a leaf out of his pocket book and wrote on it, “One line to say you accept my gift and my good wishes.  Put it under the cushion of your chair, and I shall find it when the company have left the tent.”  He slipped the paper into the case which held the bracelet, and instead of leaving the farm as he had intended, turned back to the shelter of the shrubbery.