Mr. Smith had a good deal to say for himself, as indeed he had on all occasions; but as his discourse was entirely of a personal character, it may have been rather wanting in general interest. Isabel strolled up and down the narrow pathway by his side, and turned her face politely towards him, and said, "Yes," and "Did you really!" and "Well, how very strange!" now and then. But she was thinking as she had thought in church; she was thinking of the wonderful happiness that lay before her,--an evening in _his_ companionship, amongst pictures and hothouse flowers and marble busts and trailing silken curtains, and with glimpses of a moonlit expanse of lawn and shrubbery gleaming through every open window. She was thinking of this when a bell rang loud and shrill in her ear: and looking round suddenly, she saw a man in livery--a man who looked like a groom--standing outside the garden gate. She was so near the gate that it would have been a mere affectation to keep the man waiting there while Mrs. Jeffson made her way from the remote premises at the back of the house. The Doctor's Wife turned the key in the lock and opened the gate; but the man only wanted to deliver a letter, which he gave her with one hand while he touched the brim of his hat with the other. "From Mr. Lansdell, ma'am," he said. In the next moment he was gone, and the open gate and the white dusty lane seemed to reel before Isabel Gilbert's eyes. There had been no need for the man to tell her that the letter was from his master. She knew the bold dashing hand, in which she had read pencil annotations upon the margins of those books which Mr. Lansdell had lent her. And even if she had not known the hand, she would have easily guessed whence the letter came. Who else should send her so grand-looking a missive, with that thick cream-coloured envelope (a big official-looking envelope), and the broad coat-of-arms with tall winged supporters on the seal? But why should he have written to her? It was to put off the dinner, no doubt. Her lips trembled a little, like the lips of a child who is going to cry, as she opened the letter. She read it very hurriedly twice, and then all at once comprehended that Roland was going away for some years,--for ever,--it was all the same thing; and that she would never, never, never, never,--the word seemed to repeat itself in her brain like the dreadful clanging of a bell,--never see him again!