He had behaved to her with extraordinary tact and consideration, and she was very conscious of it. Since her sudden return ten days before from the visit which had been meant to separate them, he had not spoken a word to her privately, except a shy sentence or two of condolence, stammered out with downcast eyes, but which from the simplicity and shortness of the words had brought up a sob from her heart. She guessed that he knew why she had been sent to Northampton, and had determined not to take advantage in any way of her sorrow. Every morning he had disappeared before she came down, and did not come back till supper, where he sat silent and apart, and yet, when an occasion offered itself, behaved with a quick attentive deference that showed her where his thoughts had been. Now she stood, wondering and timid, at that hurried insistent step on the other side of the hedge. As she hesitated, he came quickly through the doorway and stopped short. "Mistress Isabel," he said, with all his reserve gone, and looking at her imploringly, but with the old familiar air that she loved, "have you heard? I am to go as soon as my father comes back. Oh! it is a shame!" His voice was full of tears, and his eyes were bright and angry. Her heart leapt up once and then seemed to cease beating. "Go?" she said; and even as she spoke knew from her own dismay how dear that quiet chivalrous presence was to her. "Yes," he went on in the same voice. "Oh! I know I should not speak; and--and especially now at all times; but I could not bear it; nor that you should think it was my will to go." She stood still looking at him. "May I walk with you a little," he said, "but--I must not say much--I promised my father." And then as they walked he began to pour it out. "It is some old man in Durham," he said, "and I am to see to his estates. My father will not want me here when he comes back, and, and it is to be soon. He has had the offer for me; and has written to tell me. There is no choice." She had turned instinctively towards the house, and the high roofs and chimneys were before them, dark against the luminous sky. "No, no," said Hubert, laying his hand on her arm; and at the touch she thrilled so much that she knew she must not stay, and went forward resolutely up the steps of the terrace. "Ah! let me speak," he said; "I have not troubled you much, Mistress Isabel." She hesitated again a moment. "In my father's room," he went on, "and I will bring the letter." She nodded and passed into the hall without speaking, and turned to Sir Nicholas' study; while Hubert's steps dashed up the stairs to his mother's room. Isabel went in and stood on the hearth in the firelight that glowed and wavered round the room on the tapestry and the prie-dieu and the table where Hubert had been sitting and the tall shuttered windows, leaning her head against the mantelpiece, doubtful and miserable.