And Mr. Fanshawe spent a most dreary evening. Marjory had receded, he thought, from all her incipient civilities. She paid scarcely any attention to him, and evaded his skilful reference to the old house, and the visit to it which was to be made to-morrow. If to-morrow was not better than to-day, he felt that he must be driven from Pitcomlie. He could not bear it any longer; and yet there were certain fascinations which held him against his will, even in the midst of this monotony of woe. CHAPTER XII. When Marjory went upstairs for the night, she made a strenuous endeavour to get Tom’s papers in order for her father, and to ignore the one paper which had opened a door, as it were, in her brother’s life, and of which nobody knew but herself. She went on working till long past midnight, always with a consciousness of that letter in the corner, which was like the presence of some one in the room with her, of which she was not supposed to be aware. She tried to forget it, but she could not forget. While she collected the bills and tied them together, her mind went on with a perpetual stream of questions--Who was this girl? Where had Tom met her? Had she really hoped to be Mrs. Heriot of Pitcomlie? and a hundred other mental inquiries to which, of course, there could come no answer. In her mind, she went over all the countryside, searching into every cottage in order to find out, if possible, who “Isabell” was. It is a common name enough in Fife--a score of Isabells presented themselves to her fancy, but she could not realize any one of them as the writer of that letter. And Tom had spent but little time at home. If it had not been so Scotch even, Marjory’s curiosity would have been less excited; but it seemed certain that she must know who it was who wrote in that familiar dialect. While her eye noted the dates of those very different documents which she was collecting--while she made out her list of them, and slowly added up the figures--though that was a mental process somewhat difficult, and not very rapid--her whole soul was absorbed in this other current of thought. She was even capable of feeling grieved and miserable about the effect the bills would have upon her father, while in imagination she was passing from door to door, from cottage to cottage, searching for this Isabell. Was she wondering, perhaps, what had become of her lover, poor foolish thing! perhaps after all, Marjory allowed, with difficulty, she might be truly fond of him, might love him even, after her fashion--might be suffering such tortures as she was capable of, wondering at his silence, wearying--was not that the word in the letter? wearying, wearying! for him who was to come no more. Was Tom’s sister, even for a moment, half sorry for the girl? If she was, Marjory scorned the sentiment as a weakness of nature. Then, in its musing, her mind returned to its first view of the matter. Was it certain, after all, that Tom had so far forgotten himself and his family