I refuse to wait for you; I refuse to accept a conditional
engagement. Wait, and think. They're walking slowly; you have got some
minutes more."
He still held her arm, watching the guests as they gradually receded
from view. It was not until they had all collected in a group outside
the cottage door that he spoke himself, or that he permitted Isabel to
speak again.
"Now," he said, "you have had your time to get cool. Will you take my
arm, and join those people with me? or will you say good-by forever?"
"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.
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