"He was abroad somewhere. My lady wrote to him, beseeching him to try and get Miss Philippa to come back. That was soon after the accident. He came to England, but he couldn't do any good. I did hear he quarrelled with his sister over it, and wouldn't see her or speak to her again. He was so fond of Mr. Francis. "It is an old story now." The old woman sighed deeply. "I little thought to speak of it again. My lady never named her, and I hated her too much to wish to speak of her. She condemned my boy to years of prison--aye, and worse than prison. Of course I hated her. Even when I heard that she had died a few years after her marriage the hatred didn't die. I couldn't help it. You can't help your feelings. But I never spoke of her. If you can't say good of the dead you had best say nothing. When I saw you last night I really thought it was her. God forgive me! I think there was murder in my old heart! But now--you have come--and he will be content." CHAPTER V ISABELLA "In life there are meetings which seem like a fate."--OWEN MEREDITH. The sun was low upon the horizon, casting cool shadows across the summer landscape, as Philippa walked out of the lodge gates the same evening, and turned up the road which climbed the incline leading up on to the moorland. She had passed through many emotions in a short space of time, and she craved for solitude--to be at peace to think over the extraordinary events of the last few hours, and steady her mind, which seemed to be whirling under the strain she had endured. The day had been hot, but now a cool breeze, very refreshing to the tired girl, was blowing in from the sea. She walked slowly along, thinking deeply, and as she thought, gradually little points of light shone out from the dim past, and played upon the story she had heard, and which had touched her so profoundly. Little actions of her father's--words which he had spoken, unheeded at the time, or at any rate not understood, now seemed to acquire a new meaning. She had been utterly ignorant of her aunt's existence, or if she had known her in early childhood, she had lost all recollection of her. Her father had never mentioned his sister.