Aunt Rachel. What was I to think when Phillippa wouldn’t answer my letters?”
“She never got one,” I cried. “She wept her sweet eyes out over you. Somebody must have got those letters.”
And I knew then, and I know now, though never a shadow of proof have I, that Isabella Clark had got them — and kept them. That woman would stick at nothing.
“Well, we'll sift that matter some other time,” said Owen impatiently. “There are other things to think of now. I must see Phillippa.”
“I’ll manage it for you,” I said eagerly; but, just as I spoke, the door opened and Isabella and Mark came in. Never shall I forget the look on Isabella’s face. I almost felt sorry for her. She turned sickly yellow and her eyes went wild; they were looking at the downfall of all her schemes and hopes. I didn’t look at Mark Foster, at first, and, when I did, there wasn’t anything to see. His face was just as sallow and wooden as ever; he looked undersized and common beside Owen. Nobody’d ever have picked him out for a bridegroom.
Owen spoke first.
“I want to see Phillippa,” he said, as if it were but yesterday that he had gone away.
All Isabella’s smoothness and policy had dropped away from her, and the real woman stood there, plot-
