So far as she could and dared, Isobel Vintry withdrew herself from the company of Harry Belfield. She relaxed her supervision of the lovers when they were together; she tried to avoid any risk of being alone with Harry. She knew that Wellgood was watching her, and was determined to give no new handle to his suspicion. Her own feelings agreed in dictating her line of action. In ordinary intercourse she was sure of herself; she was not anxious to seek extraordinary temptation. She had more resolution than Harry, but not the same power of self-delusion, not the same faculty of imagining that an enemy was finally conquered because he had been once defeated or defied. She was careful not to expose herself to danger, either from herself or from Wellgood. Harry had decided that all chance of danger was over; he laughed at it now, almost literally laughed. Yet while he derided the notion of peril, he liked the flavour of memory. He kept turning the thing over in a mood nicely compounded of remorse and self-esteem; of penitence for the folly, and self-congratulation over the end that had been put to it; of wonder at his aberration, and excuse of it in view of Isobel's attractions. Gone as it all was in fact, it was not banished from retrospect. Wellgood grew easier in his mind. He had marked some florins--opportunities for private meetings rather clumsily offered; they had not been taken. His suspicions of the past remained, but he thought that he had effectually frightened Isobel. He had good hopes for his own scheme again. If she did not come round before the wedding--now only a fortnight off--he believed that she would afterwards. Harry finally out of reach, his turn would come. He continued his smoothness, and did not relax his vigilance; but, as the days passed by, his hopes rose to confidence again. The dinner-party at Halton in the Nun's honour went off with great success; she comported herself with such decorum and ease that Mrs. Belfield felt her problem solved, while Billy Foot found his even more pressing. Vivien was the only representative of Nutley. Wellgood had gone to the county town to attend a meeting of the County Council; the trains ran awkwardly, and, unless the business proved very brief, he would have to dine at the hotel, and would not reach home till late at night. Isobel had excused herself, pursuant to her policy of seeing as little as possible of Harry. But the party was reinforced by Gilly Foot, who had come down for a couple of days' rest, and was staying at the Lion--the great publishing house being left to take care of itself for this short space.