‘Now I’ll tell you what, Isabel,’ he said, ‘I am not to be trifled with any more. It must be made an end of one way or another. The steamer leaves Kilcranion at three----’ ‘It shall be made an end of,’ cried Isabel, ‘when you can speak to me like that in my trouble--when you can speak of _her_ like that--oh, say no more! It shows me you do not know what love means--not what it means. I bade you farewell, and you would not take it--but now I say, Go, Mr. Stapylton, go! You have said enough--oh, too much, too much! I cannot bear it. Free! and nothing to her! O man, man, have ye a heart within ye? and can you think I would be glad of that?’ ‘I can’t speak your cant,’ cried Stapylton. ‘Isabel! this is the last attempt I will ever make----’ He followed her as he spoke, for she had turned from him, making her way towards the highroad. For a few minutes he went on with her, keeping close by her side, speaking rapidly. ‘This is the last time I will speak. The steamer leaves Kilcranion at three; I will be here waiting for you at two o’clock. I will take every precaution, and make every arrangement. Think it over, Isabel, you never made such an important decision. If you do not come to me at two to-morrow we may never meet more in our lives.’ She stopped and stood gazing at him as he came to this conclusion. For his part he had grown pale and breathless with excitement. He looked at her menacingly from beneath his lowering brows. ‘Never in our lives if not to-morrow!’ he repeated, looking intently in her eyes as if to look her down. But Isabel was roused, too; she met his eyes without flinching, though every particle of colour had left her face. ‘You threaten me!’ she said, with unconscious scorn. ‘If it was me, I would go to the end of the earth for one I loved--not frown at her, and break her heart to do a thing that’s impossible. Oh, how could you ask me to do it? It will have to be never--never! if that is your last word----’ And even then poor Isabel’s maidenly soul was so faithful, so incapable of believing he could mean the cruel things he said, that her eyes grew wistful and woeful looking at him, for one final moment appealing still. ‘I will wait for you all the same,’ he said, with a half-laugh. ‘When you think it all over, you’ll change your mind. At two o’clock I will be here.’ For yet one more moment they stood confronting each other; he with a smile of affected calmness; she with a gaze that gradually clouded into despair. Then she turned with a little wave of her hand, and left him. He did not attempt to follow. He stood on the same spot watching her as she wound her way through the heather. Once or twice he moved a step in the same direction as if to go after her, but immediately stopped himself.