lost.
Hardyman promised to have the dog looked for in every part of the farm, and to send him back in the care of one of his own men. With these polite assurances Lady Lydiard was obliged to be satisfied. She drove away in a very despondent frame of mind. 'First Isabel, and now Tommie,' thought her Ladyship. 'I am losing the only companions who made life tolerable to me.'
Returning from the garden gate, after taking leave of his visitor, Hardyman received from his servant a handful of letters which had just arrived for him. Walking slowly over the lawn as he opened them, he found nothing but excuses for the absence of guests who had already accepted their invitations. He had just thrust the letters into his pocket, when he heard footsteps behind him, and, looking round, found himself confronted by Moody.
'Hullo! have you come to lunch?' Hardyman asked, roughly.
'I have come here, sir, with a little gift for Miss Isabel, in honor of her marriage,' Moody answered quietly, 'and I ask your permission to put it on the table, so that she may see it when your guests sit down to luncheon.'
He opened a jeweler's case as he spoke, containing a plain gold bracelet with an inscription engraved on the inner side: 'To Miss Isabel Miller, with the sincere good wishes of Robert Moody.'
Plain as it was, the design of the bracelet was unusually beautiful. Hardyman had noticed Moody's agitation on the day when he had met Isabel near her aunt's house, and had drawn his own conclusions from it. His face darkened with a momentary jealousy as he looked at the bracelet. 'All right, old fellow!' he said, with contemptuous familiarity. 'Don't be modest. Wait and give it to her with your own hand.'
'No, sir,' said Moody 'I would rather leave it, if you please, to speak for itself.'
Hardyman understood the delicacy of feeling which dictated those words, and, without well knowing why, resented it. He was on the point of speaking, under the influence of this unworthy motive, when Isabel's voice reached his ears, calling to him from the cottage.
Moody's face contracted with a sudden expression of pain as he, too, recognized the voice. 'Don't let me detain you, sir,' he said, sadly. 'Good-morning!'
Hardyman left him without ceremony. Moody, slowly following, entered the tent. All the preparations for the luncheon had been completed; nobody was there. The places to be occupied by the guests were indicated by cards bearing their names. Moody found Isabel's card, and put his bracelet inside the folded napkin on her plate. For a while he stood with his hand on the table, thinking. The temptation to communicate once more with Isabel before he lost her forever, was fast getting the better of his powers of resistance.
'If I could persuade her to write a word to say she liked her bracelet,' he thought, 'it would be a comfort when I go back to my solitary life.' He tore a leaf out of his pocket book and wrote on it, 'One line to say you accept my gift and my good wishes. Put it under the cushion of your chair, and I shall find it when the company have left the tent.' He slipped the paper into the case which held the bracelet, and instead of leaving the farm as he had intended, turned back to the shelter of the shrubbery.
CHAPTER XXI.
HARDYMAN went on to the cottage. He found Isabel in some agitation. And there, by her side, with his tail wagging slowly, and his eye on Hardyman in expectation of a possible kick—there was the lost Tommie!
'Has Lady Lydiard gone?' Isabel asked eagerly.
'Yes,' said Hardyman. 'Where did you find the dog?'
As events had ordered it, the dog had found Isabel, under these circumstances.
The appearance of Lady Lydiard's card in the smoking-room had been an alarming event for Lady Lydiard's adopted daughter. She was guiltily conscious of not having answered her Ladyship's note, inclosed in Miss Pink's letter, and of not having taken her Ladyship's advice in regulating her conduct towards Hardyman. As he rose to leave the room and receive his visitor in the grounds, Isabel begged him to say nothing of her presence at the farm, unless Lady Lydiard exhibited a forgiving turn of mind by asking to see her. Left by herself in the smoking-room, she suddenly heard a bark in the passage which had a familiar sound in her ears. She opened the door—and in rushed Tommie, with one of his shrieks of delight! Curiosity had taken him into the house. He had heard the voices in the smoking-room; had recognized Isabel's voice; and had waited, with his customary cunning and his customary distrust of strangers, until Hardyman was out of the way. Isabel kissed and caressed him, and then drove him out again to the lawn, fearing that Lady Lydiard might return to look for him. Going back to the smoking-room, she stood at the window watching for Hardyman's return. When the servants came to look for the dog, she could only tell them that she had last seen him in the grounds, not far from the cottage. The useless search being abandoned, and the carriage having left the gate, who should crawl out from the back of a cupboard in which some empty hampers were placed but Tommie himself! How he had contrived to get back to the smoking-room (unless she had omitted to completely close the door on her return) it was impossible to say. But there he was, determined this time to stay with Isabel, and keeping in his hiding place until he heard the movement of the carriage-wheels, which informed him that his lawful mistress had left the cottage! Isabel had at once called Hardyman, on the chance that the carriage might yet be stopped. It was already out of sight, and nobody knew which of two roads it had taken, both leading to London. In this emergency, Isabel could only look at Hardyman and ask what was to be done.
'I can't spare a servant till after the party,' he answered. 'The dog must be tied up in the stables.'
Isabel shook her head. Tommie was not accustomed to be tied up. He would make a disturbance, and he would be beaten by the grooms. 'I will take care of him,' she said. 'He won't leave me.'
'There's something else to think of besides the dog,' Hardyman rejoined irritably. 'Look at these letters!' He pulled them out of his pocket as he spoke. 'Here are no less than seven men, all calling themselves my friends, who accepted my invitation, and who write to excuse themselves on the very day of the party. Do you know why? They're all afraid of my father—I forgot to tell you he's a Cabinet Minister as well as a Lord. Cowards and cads. They have heard he isn't coming and they think to curry favor with the great man by stopping away. Come along, Isabel! Let's take their names off the luncheon table. Not a man of them shall ever darken my doors again!'
'I am to blame for what has happened,' Isabel answered sadly. 'I am estranging you from your friends. There is still time, Alfred, to alter your mind and let me go.'
He put his arm round her with rough fondness. 'I would sacrifice every friend I have in the world rather than lose you. Come along!'
They left the cottage. At the entrance to the tent, Hardyman noticed the dog at Isabel's heels, and vented his ill-temper, as usual with male humanity, on the nearest unoffending creature that he could find. 'Be off, you mongrel
