Then Everard disappointed a crowd of admiring friends by disappearing through a side gate and going home across the fields, even waving back his young sisters, who would have followed him. "I could not stand it," he said, on reaching home half an hour after the others, though his way had been much shorter, he having spent the interim in self-communion beneath the shade of a friendly oak. Oh! that was a happy Sunday at Elm Grove; but, like all earthly happiness, it had one cloud--Grace's strange and unkind conduct. CHAPTER XXXII. "Please, Miss Leicester, a gentleman wishes to see you," said Susan, putting her rosy face in at the school-room door, as Isabel was giving the children their last lesson. "To see _me_, Susan?" exclaimed Isabel. "Yes, Miss, he asked for you, but he would not give his name." "Very well, Susan. Who can it be?" she asked, turning to Alice. "I'm sure _I_ don't know," answered Alice, laughing, "you had better go and see." On entering the drawing-room, Isabel saw to her astonishment that it was Louis Taschereau. "This is indeed a surprise," she said, extending her hand, for in her present happiness she could not be ungracious or unkind. Encouraged by her cordial greeting, Louis began: "I thought of writing, but determined on seeking an interview, as a letter could but inadequately convey what I wished to say. I have suffered much, as you are aware, and my troubles have made me a very different man; but a gleam of light seems once more to shine on my path, and I hope yet to repair the error of my life. Can you--will you--overlook and forgive the past, and be again to me all that you once were? I know that I do not deserve it, but I will try to atone for the past if, dear Isabel, you will be my wife." "Stay, Dr. Taschereau!" interposed Isabel, "I am just about to marry a clergyman who is going abroad." Had a cannon-ball fallen at his feet, Louis could scarcely have been more dumbfounded than he was at this intelligence. He became deadly pale, and she thought he would faint. "You are ill, Dr. Taschereau. Let me ring for some wine." "Don't ring, I don't want any. Is this true?" he continued, "are you really going to marry another?" "I am, and I do not see why you should be surprised." "Why do you make me love you so? Why must your image intrude itself into every plan, and all be done as you would approve, if, after all, you are to marry another? You would not wonder at the effect of what you have told me, if you knew how the hope that you would forgive me and yet be mine, has been my only comfort a long, dreary time."