"Are you going back to Mr. Sharon to help you?" she asked. "That trick he played me has destroyed my belief in him. He no more knows than I do who the thief really is."
"You are mistaken, Isabel. He knows--and I know." He stopped there, and made a sign to her to be silent. One of the servants was approaching them.
"Is the pocketbook found?" Moody asked.
"No, sir."
"Has Mr. Hardyman left the cottage?"
"He has just gone, sir. Have you any further instructions to give us?"
"No. There is my address in London, if the pocketbook should be found."
The man took the card that was handed to him and retired. Moody offered his arm to Isabel. "I am at your service," he said, "when you wish to return to your aunt."
They had advanced nearly as far as the tent, on their way out of the grounds, when they were met by a gentleman walking towards them from the cottage. He was a stranger to Isabel. Moody immediately recognized him as Mr. Felix Sweetsir.
"Ha! our good Moody!" cried Felix. "Enviable man! you look younger than ever." He took off his hat to Isabel; his bright restless eyes suddenly became quiet as they rested on her. "Have I the honor of addressing the future Mrs. Hardyman? May I offer my best congratulations? What has become of our friend Alfred?"
Moody answered for Isabel. "If you will make inquiries at the cottage, sir," he said, "you will find that you are mistaken, to say the least of it, in addressing your questions to this young lady."
Felix took off his hat again--with the most becoming appearance of surprise and distress.
"Something wrong, I fear?" he said, addressing Isabel. "I am, indeed, ashamed if I have ignorantly given you a moment's pain. Pray accept my most sincere apologies. I have only this instant arrived; my health would not allow me to be present at the luncheon. Permit me to express the earnest hope that matters may be set right to the satisfaction of all parties. Good-afternoon!"
He bowed with elaborate courtesy, and turned back to the cottage.
"Who is that?" Isabel asked.
"Lady Lydiard's nephew, Mr. Felix Sweetsir," Moody answered, with a sudden sternness of tone, and a sudden coldness of manner, which surprised Isabel.
"You don't like him?" she said.
As she spoke, Fe lix stopped to give audience to one of the grooms, who had apparently been sent with a message to him. He turned so that his face was once more visible to Isabel. Moody pressed her hand significantly as it rested on his arm.
"Look well at that man," he whispered. "It's time to warn you. Mr. Felix Sweetsir is the worst enemy you have!"
Isabel heard him in speechless astonishment. He went on in tones that trembled with suppressed emotion.
"You doubt if Sharon knows the thief. You doubt if I know the thief. Isabel! as certainly as the heaven is above us, there stands the wretch who stole the bank-note!"
She drew her hand out of his arm with a cry of terror. She looked at him as if she doubted whether he was in his right mind.
He took her hand, and waited a moment trying to compose himself.
"Listen to me," he said. "At the first consultation I had with Sharon he gave this advice to Mr. Troy and to me. He said, 'Suspect the very last person on whom suspicion could possibly fall.' Those words, taken with the questions he had asked before he pronounced his opinion, struck through me as if he had struck me with a knife. I instantly suspected Lady Lydiard's nephew. Wait! From that time to this I have said nothing of my suspicion to any living soul. I knew in my own heart that it took its rise in the inveterate dislike that I have always felt for Mr. Sweetsir, and I distrusted it accordingly. But I went back to Sharon, for all that, and put the case into his hands. His investigations informed me that Mr. Sweetsir owed 'debts of honor' (as gentlemen call them), incurred through lost bets, to a large number of persons, and among them a bet of five hundred pounds lost to Mr. Hardyman. Further inquiries showed that Mr. Hardyman had taken the lead in declaring that he would post Mr. Sweetsir as a defaulter, and have him turned out of his clubs, and turned out of the betting-ring. Ruin stared him in the face if he failed to pay his debt to Mr. Hardyman on the last day left to him--the day after the note was lost. On that very morning, Lady Lydiard, speaking to me of her nephew's visit to her, said, 'If I had given him an opportunity of speaking, Felix would have borrowed money of me; I saw it in his face.' One moment more, Isabel. I am not only certain that Mr. Sweetsir took the five-hundred pound note out of the open letter, I am firmly persuaded that he is the man who told Lord Rotherfield of the circumstances under which you left Lady Lydiard's house. Your marriage to Mr. Hardyman might have put you in a position to detect the theft. You, not I, might, in that case, have discovered from your husband that the stolen note was the note with which Mr. Sweetsir paid his debt. He came here, you may depend on it, to make sure that he had succeeded in destroying your prospects. A more depraved villain at heart than that man never swung from a gallows!"
He checked himself at those words. The shock of the disclosure, the passion and vehemence with which he spoke, overwhelmed Isabel. She trembled like a frightened child.
While he was still trying to soothe and reassure her, a low whining made itself heard at her feet. They looked down, and saw Tommie. Finding himself noticed at last, he expressed his sense of relief by a bark. Something dropped out of his mouth. As Moody stooped to pick it up, the dog ran to Isabel and pushed his head against her feet, as his way was when he expected to have the handkerchief thrown over him, preparatory to one of those games at hide-and-seek which have been already mentioned. Isabel put out her hand to caress him, when she was stopped by a cry from Moody. It was his turn to tremble now. His voice faltered as he said the words, "The dog has found the pocketbook!"
He opened the book with shaking hands. A betting-book was bound up in it, with the customary calendar. He turned to the date of the day after the robbery.
There was the entry: "Felix Sweetsir. Paid 500 pounds. Note numbered, N 8, 70564; dated 15th May, 1875."
Moody took from his waistcoat pocket his own memorandum of the number of the lost bank-note. "Read it Isabel," he said. "I won't trust my memory."
She read it. The number and date of the note entered in the pocketbook exactly corresponded with the number and date of the note that Lady Lydiard had placed in her letter.
Moody handed the pocketbook to Isabel. "There is the proof of your innocence," he said, "thanks to the dog! Will you write and tell Mr. Hardyman what has happened?" he asked, with his head down and his eyes on the ground.
She answered him, with the bright color suddenly flowing over her face.
"You shall write to him," she said, "when the time comes."
"What time?" he asked.
She threw her arms round his neck, and hid her face on his bosom.