"Well, I mean what I say. It is quite enough that I turn against him and that everything between us is at an end. I hate him now, for he has used me cruelly, and it seems to have changed my nature; but I cannot forget the past, and would not be malignant and cruel too." Laura took the hand that was resigned to her, and the pair sat in silence for some minutes. Isabel's lips moved several times, as if she were about to speak, but no words came, till, with a desperate effort, she said in a husky whisper-- "Have you seen her, Laura?" "I? No!" cried the girl, who was startled by the question. "But you know she is beautiful, and rich, and aristocratic?" "I only know what aunt has said, dear; but if she were the most beautiful woman that ever breathed, it is no excuse for Fred treating you as he did." "I don't know," said Isabel, sadly. "He is wise and clever, while I have often felt that it was more than I could expect for a man like him to care for me, so simple and homely as I am." "Fred ought to have been only too proud to have won such a girl," cried Laura, sharply, but her visitor shook her head. "It was only a brief fancy of his, dear, and as soon as the right woman came across his path he forgot me. Well, I am patient if I am not proud, for I cannot resent it, dear, only try to bear it, for I loved him very dearly; but it is very hard for the little romance of one's poor homely life to be so soon brought to an end." "It was cruel--cruel in the extreme," cried Laura, angrily. "I would not have believed that my brother, whom I almost worshipped, could have behaved so ill." "These things are a mystery," said Isabel, gently; "and perhaps it is better that it should have happened now than later on when we were married. But tell me about him, dear. Has he settled down to seeing his patients again? You wrote to me saying that he was neglecting everything." "So he is, nearly everything, now. Bel dear, I will not be so hard upon him any more. You must be right, that he cannot help himself, or he would never have behaved so ill. He must be mad." Isabel clung to her with a startled look in her eyes. "It is the only way in which I can account for the change," continued Laura, "for I will not believe what Aunt Grace says, that all men are bad at heart. If they are, women must be as wicked too." Isabel shivered slightly. "Tell me about what he does now." "I can't, dear," cried Laura, piteously. "I seem to know so little. Only that he goes out soon after breakfast, and does not come back till dinner-time, and so wet sometimes that he must have been walking about the streets for hours." Isabel sighed. "I've tried--oh, how I've tried!--to win his confidence; but he says nothing, only turns away, and goes out. It is just as if he had lost something of which he is always in search, and every day he grows more moody and strange."