“Forgive me, Alfred!” she began, gently.  “I cannot consent, in justice to you, to shelter myself behind your name.  It is the name of your family; and they have a right to expect that you will not degrade it—­”

“I want a plain answer,” he interposed sternly.  “Which is it?  Yes, or No?”

She looked at him with sad compassionate eyes.  Her voice was firm as she answered him in one word as he had desired.  The word was—­

“No.”

Without speaking to her, without even looking at her, he turned and walked back to the cottage.

Making his way silently through the group of visitors—­every one of whom had been informed of what had happened by his sister—­with his head down and his lips fast closed, he entered the parlor and rang the bell which communicated with his foreman’s rooms at the stables.

“You know that I am going abroad on business?” he said, when the man appeared.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am going to-day—­going by the night train to Dover.  Order the horse to be put to instantly in the dogcart.  Is there anything wanted before I am off?”

The inexorable necessities of business asserted their claims through the obedient medium of the foreman.  Chafing at the delay, Hardyman was obliged to sit at his desk, signing checks and passing accounts, with the dogcart waiting in the stable yard.

A knock at the door startled him in the middle of his work.  “Come in,” he called out sharply.

He looked up, expecting to see one of the guests or one of the servants.  It was Moody who entered the room.  Hardyman laid down his pen, and fixed his eyes sternly on the man who had dared to interrupt him.

“What the devil do you want?” he asked.

“I have seen Miss Isabel, and spoken with her,” Moody replied.  “Mr. Hardyman, I believe it is in your power to set this matter right.  For the young lady’s sake, sir, you must not leave England without doing it.”

Hardyman turned to his foreman.  “Is this fellow mad or drunk?” he asked.

Moody proceeded as calmly and as resolutely as if those words had not been spoken.  “I apologize for my intrusion, sir.  I will trouble you with no explanations.  I will only ask one question.  Have you a memorandum of the number of that five-hundred pound note you paid away in France?”

Hardyman lost all control over himself.

“You scoundrel!” he cried, “have you been prying into my private affairs?  Is it your business to know what I did in France?”

“Is it your vengeance on a woman to refuse to tell her the number of a bank-note?” Moody rejoined, firmly.

That answer forced its way, through Hardyman’s anger, to Hardyman’s sense of honor.  He rose and advanced to Moody.  For a moment the two men faced each other in silence.  “You’re a bold fellow,” said Hardyman, with a sudden change from anger to irony.  “I’ll do the lady justice.  I’ll look at my pocketbook.”