“I beg your pardon,” he said, starting, when he heard the hall clock strike, “but I wished to see Miss Douglas. I have a little piece of property belonging to her, which I desire to return.” Isabel longed to ask what it was, but dare not. “Miss Douglas!” she said, with elevated eyebrows, and well-assumed surprise. “Yes; I inquired for her when I gave my card to the servant.” “I am sorry there should have been any mistake, Mr. Dredmond,” replied Isabel, smiling sweetly, but inwardly raging, “but the servant must have misunderstood, for he brought your card to me; besides, Miss Douglas is not with us now, she has left.” “Left! Indeed, I thought she came abroad with you, and intended to return with you,” he said, in great surprise, and beginning to think that all was not right. “I know nothing as to her intentions, Mr. Dredmond, but we have been pained to discover that Miss Douglas is not trustworthy, and mamma was therefore obliged to dispense with her services.” The lie stung her tongue, but she remembered his evident admiration of Brownie the night of the opera, and she resolved to disenchant him if possible. “Not trustworthy!” he exclaimed, aghast. He would have staked his own honor against hers. “It is very painful, is it not, Mr. Dredmond, when she appeared so innocent and was so beautiful?” asked Isabel, with a sad smile. He did not reply, and she went on: “But we found that she had been taking that which did not belong to her, and, of course, mamma could not longer trust the girls under her influence.” The artful girl’s tone and manner expressed the deepest regret, but he was not deceived by it, although her statement of Brownie’s dishonesty confounded him. “Impossible!” he ejaculated, with a pained, startled look, and his mind went back to that moment when her pure face lay one moment upon his bosom, and when she had lifted her clear eyes, which were like shining pools of purest water, so trustingly to his, and now he was told that she was a thief! “It does not seem possible, I admit,” Isabel hastened to say, fearing she had been unwise, and not liking the way he had received her information. “Mamma and I were infinitely shocked when we discovered it, but the proof was too incontestable, even without her evident guilt, for us to doubt.” “Was she—did she confess her—fault?” he stammered. “Oh, no! such persons never do that, you know; they always put on any amount of airs, and make a great show of innocence. But, then, we had the proof right in our own hands.” “Would you mind telling me what she has done—what proof you have of her guilt? Perhaps there may be some misunderstanding to which I could suggest an explanation,” he said, inwardly writhing with pain at her words.