She drew herself up a little, as if in protest against his pertinacity. “I really cannot understand why you should care whether I go or stay away,” she said coldly. “Oh, but I do care! It is childish, perhaps, on my part, but I do care; I care tremendously; more than I have cared about anything for a long time. It is so small a thing on your part--it means so much for me! Say you will be there.” “Is that you, ma’am?” asked Tabitha’s pleasant voice, while Tabitha’s substantial soles made themselves audible upon the gravel path. “I was beginning to get fidgety about you.” “Good night,” said Isola, shortly, as she passed through the gate. It shut with a sharp little click of the latch, and she vanished among the laurels and arbutus. He heard her voice and Tabitha’s as they walked towards the house in friendly conversation, mistress and maid. There was a great over-blown Dijon rose nodding its heavy head over the fence. Roses linger so late in that soft western air. Lostwithiel plucked the flower, and pulled off its petals one by one as he walked towards the village street. “Will she go--will she stay--go--stay--go--stay?” he muttered, as the petals fluttered to the ground. “Go! Yes, of course she will go,” he said to himself as the last leaf fell. “Does it need ghost from the grave or rose from the garden to tell me that?” CHAPTER IV. “DREAMING, SHE KNEW IT WAS A DREAM.” Isola and Lostwithiel met a good many times after that walk through the autumn mists. She tried her utmost to avoid him. She went for fewer walks than of old; nay, she chiefly confined her perambulations to those domestic errands which Tabitha imposed upon her, and such afternoon visits as she felt it incumbent upon her to pay, in strict return for visits paid to her. Major Disney had begged her to be exact in such small ceremonies, and to keep upon the best possible terms with his friends. “I love every soul in the place, for old sake’s sake,” he told her; and for old sake’s sake Isola had to cultivate the people her husband had known all his life.