Isabel shook her head as one who knows and may not be comforted. “No, he won’t--not the man that I sent away. Harry, the good-natured, obstinate boy that we used to tease and make fun of, might; but this grown man that I never knew till the other day is quite different. He will never put it off with a laugh and come back as if nothing had happened--I know he won’t.” Thus Isabel, thinking only of the seeming change wrought in her lover by the quick shifting of her own point of view, and Dorothy, with the chill of a nameless fear benumbing her, could only repeat her prophecy: “He will come back; never fear, Bella.” “I wish I could believe it, but I can’t. O Dothy, if you could have seen his face when he went away! I shall never forget how he looked, not if I should live to be a hundred.” Dorothy had a fleeting vision of a man hurrying out through the hall with a look of desperate trouble in his eyes, and in a flash the apparent ambiguity in Isabel’s confession vanished. It was her sister, and not her mother, who had gone to meet Mr. Brant. It was he, and not Harry, whom Isabel had sent away, and for whose loss she was grieving. Dorothy shut her eyes hard, and for a moment the pain of it was sharp enough to make her shrink from the innocent cause of it. Then a great wave of thankfulness swept over her when she remembered that her secret was yet her own. And close upon the heels of gratitude came a growing wonder that she could have been so blind. She might have known from the first that it was Isabel. It was plain enough now. His gentle deference to her sister’s moods, his helpful criticism of her work, his evident determination to give Antrim the preference which was his by right, leaving Isabel free to choose between them. All these things pointed to but one conclusion, and Dorothy was thankful again; this time for the darkness which hid the hot blushes. For she remembered how ready she had been to read quite a different meaning into all of his sayings and doings. And the little sister of fickleness? Dorothy was loyal after her kind, and she quickly found excuses for Isabel. Was it not what always happens when a man of the world and a stranger is pitted against a playmate lover? So the pyramid of misapprehension was builded course by course until it lacked only the capstone, and this was added in the answer to Dorothy’s question: “When did all this happen, Bella, dear?” “The last time he was here; years ago, it seems to me--but perhaps it is only months or weeks.” This was the capstone, and there was now no room for doubt. It was nearly two weeks since Brant had stopped coming, and there had been no intermission in Harry’s visits. Indeed, it was only a few days since he had taken Isabel to the opera. Dorothy choked down a little sigh, put herself and her own dream of happiness aside, and became from that moment her sister’s loyal and loving ally.