In talking over a bygone misfortune, we sometimes make the remark, or hear it made to us, “Circumstances worked against it.” Such and such a thing might have turned out differently, we say, had the surrounding circumstances been more favorable, but they were in opposition; they were dead against it. Now, if ever attendant circumstances can be said to have borne a baneful influence upon any person in this world, they most assuredly did at this present time against Lady Isabel Carlyle.

Coeval, you see, with the arrival of the excaptain, Levison, at East Lynne, all the jealous feeling, touching her husband and Barbara Hare, was renewed, and with greater force than ever. Barbara, painfully anxious that something should be brought to light, it would have puzzled her to say how or by what means, by which her brother should be exonerated from the terrible charge under which he lay; fully believing that Frederick Thorn, captain in her majesty’s service, was the man who had committed the crime, as asserted by Richard, was in a state of excitement bordering upon frenzy. Too keenly she felt the truth of her own words, that she was powerless, that she could, herself, do nothing. When she rose in the morning, after a night passed in troubled reflection more than in sleep, her thoughts were, “Oh, that I could this day find out something certain!” She was often at the Herberts’; frequently invited there—sometimes going uninvited. She and the Herberts were intimate and they pressed Barbara into all the impromptu gay doings, now their brother was at home. There she of course saw Captain Thorn, and now and then she was enabled to pick up scraps of his past history. Eagerly were these scraps carried to Mr. Carlyle. Not at his office; Barbara would not appear there. Perhaps she was afraid of the gossiping tongues of West Lynne, or that her visits might have come to the knowledge of that stern, prying, and questioning old gentleman whom she called sire. It may be too, that she feared, if seen haunting Mr. Carlyle’s office, Captain Thorn might come to hear of it and suspect the agitation, that was afloat—for who could know better than he, the guilt that was falsely attaching to Richard? Therefore she chose rather to go to East Lynne, or to waylay Mr. Carlyle as he passed to and from business. It was little she gathered to tell him; one evening she met him with the news that Mr. Thorn had been in former years at West Lynne, though she could not fix the date; another time she went boldly to East Lynne in eager anxiety, ostensibly to make a call on Lady Isabel—and a very restless one it was—contriving to make Mr. Carlyle understand that she wanted to see him alone. He went out with her when she departed, and accompanied her as far as the park gates, the two evidently absorbed in earnest converse. Lady Isabel’s jealous eye saw that. The communication Barbara had to make was, that Captain Thorn had let fall the avowal that he had once been “in trouble,” though of its nature there was no indication given. Another journey of hers took the scrap of news that she had discovered he knew Swainson well. Part of this, nay, perhaps the whole of it, Mr. Carlyle had found out for himself; nevertheless he always received Barbara with vivid interest. Richard Hare was related to Miss Carlyle, and if his innocence could be made clear in the sight of men, it would be little less gratifying to them than to the Hares. Of Richard’s innocence, Mr. Carlyle now entertained little, if any doubt, and he was becoming impressed with the guilt of Captain Thorn. The latter spoke mysteriously of a portion of his past life—when he could be brought to speak of it at all—and he bore evidently some secret that he did not care to have alluded to.

But now look at the mean treachery of that man, Francis Levison! The few meetings that Lady Isabel did witness between her husband and Barbara would have been quite enough to excite her anger and jealousy, to trouble her peace; but, in addition, Francis Levison took care to tell her of those she did not see. It pleased him—he could best tell with what motive—to watch the movements of Mr. Carlyle and Barbara. There was a hedge pathway through the fields, on the opposite side of the road to the residence of Justice Hare, and as Mr. Carlyle walked down the road to business in his unsuspicion (not one time in fifty did he choose to ride; the walk to and fro kept him in health, he said), Captain Levison would be strolling down like a serpent behind the hedge, watching all his movements, watching his interviews with Barbara, did any take place, watching Mr. Carlyle turn into the grove, as he sometimes did, and perhaps watch Barbara run out of the house to meet him. It was all related over, and with miserable exaggeration, to Lady Isabel, whose jealousy, as a natural sequence, grew feverish in its extent.

It is scarcely necessary to explain, that of this feeling of Lady Isabel’s Barbara knew nothing; not a shadow of suspicion had ever penetrated to her mind that Lady Isabel was jealous of her. Had she been told that such was the fact, she would have laughed in derision at her informant. Mr. Carlyle’s happy wife, proudly secure in her position and in his affection, jealous of her! of her, to whom he had never given an admiring look or a loving word! It would have taken a great deal to make Barbara believe that.

How different were the facts in reality. These meetings of Mr. Carlyle’s and Barbara’s, instead of episodes of love-making and tender speeches, were positively painful, especially to Barbara, from the unhappy nature of the subject to be discussed. Far from feeling a reprehensible pleasure at seeking the meetings with Mr. Carlyle, Barbara shrank from them; but that she was urged by dire necessity, in the interests of Richard, she would wholly have avoided such. Poor Barbara, in spite of that explosion of bottled-up excitement years back, was a lady, possessed of a lady’s ideas and feelings, and—remembering the explosion—it did not accord with her pride at all to be pushing herself into what might be called secret meetings with Archibald Carlyle. But Barbara, in her sisterly love, pressed down all thought of self, and went perseveringly forward for Richard’s sake.

Mr. Carlyle was seated one morning in his private room at his office, when his head clerk, Mr. Dill came in. “A gentleman is asking to see you, Mr. Archibald.”

“I am too busy to see anybody for this hour to come. You know that, Dill.”

“So I told him, sir, and he says he’ll wait. It is that Captain Thorn who is staying here with John Herbert.”

Mr. Carlyle raised his eyes, and they encountered those of the old man; a peculiar expression was in the face of both. Mr. Carlyle glanced down at the parchment he was perusing, as if calculating his time. Then he looked up again and spoke.

“I will see him, Dill. Send him in.”

The business leading to the visit was quite simple. Captain Frederick Thorn had got himself into some trouble and vexation about “a bill”—as too many captains will do—and he had come to crave advice of Mr. Carlyle.

Mr. Carlyle felt dubious about giving it. This Captain Thorn was a pleasant, attractive sort of a man, who won much on acquaintance; one whom Mr. Carlyle would have been pleased, in a friendly point of view, and setting professional interest apart, to help out of his difficulties; but if he were the villain they suspected him to be, the man with crime upon his hand, then Mr. Carlyle would have ordered his office door held wide for him to slink out of it.

“Cannot you advise me what my course ought to be?” he inquired, detecting Mr. Carlyle’s hesitation.

“I could advise you, certainly. But—you must excuse my being plain, Captain Thorn—I like to know who my clients are before I take up their cause or accept them as clients.”

“I am able to pay you,” was Captain Thorn’s reply. “I am not short of ready money; only this bill—”

Mr. Carlyle laughed out, after having bit his lip with annoyance. “It was a natural inference of yours,” he said, “but I assure you I was not thinking of your purse or my pocket. My father held it right never to undertake business for a stranger—unless a man was good, in a respectable point of view, and his cause was good, he did not mention it—and I have acted on the same principle. By these means, the position and character of our business, is rarely attained by a solicitor. Now, in saying that you are a stranger to me, I am not casting any doubt upon you, Captain Thorn, I am merely upholding my common practice.”

“My family is well connected,” was Captain Thorn’s next venture.

“Excuse me; family has nothing to do with it. If the poorest day laborer, if a pauper out of the workhouse came to me for advice, he should be heartily welcome to it, provided he were an honest man in the face of the day. Again I repeat, you must take no offence at what I say, for I cast no reflection on you; I only urge that you and your character are unknown to me.”

Curious words from a lawyer to a client-aspirant, and Captain Thorn found them so. But Mr. Carlyle’s tone was so courteous, his manner so affable, in fact he was so thoroughly the gentleman, that it was impossible to feel hurt.

“Well, how can I convince you that I am respectable? I have served my country ever since I was sixteen, and my brother officers have found no cause of complaint—any position as an officer and a gentleman would be generally deemed a sufficient guarantee. Inquire of John Herbert. The Herberts, too, are friends of yours, and they have not disdained to give me room amidst their family.”

“True,” returned Mr. Carlyle, feeling that he could not well object further; and also that all men should be deemed innocent until proved guilty. “At any rate, I will advise you what must be done at present,” he added, “though if the affair is one that must go on, I do not promise that I can continue to act for you. I am very busy just now.”

Captain Thorn explained his dilemma, and Mr. Carlyle told him what to do in it. “Were you not at West Lynne some ten years ago?” he suddenly inquired, at the close of the conversation. “You denied it to me once at my house; but I concluded from an observation you let fall, that you had been here.”

“Yes, I was,” replied Captain Thorn, in a confidential tone. “I don’t mind owning it to you in confidence, but I do not wish it to get abroad. I was not at West Lynne, but in its neighborhood. The fact is, when I was a careless young fellow, I was stopping a few miles from here, and got into a scrape, though a—a—in short it was an affair of gallantry. I did not show out very well at the time, and I don’t care that it should be known in the country again.”

Mr. Carlyle’s pulse—for Richard Hare’s sake—beat a shade quicker. The avowal of “an affair of gallantry” was almost a confirmation of his suspicions.

“Yes,” he pointedly said. “The girl was Afy Hallijohn.”

“Afy—who?” repeated Captain Thorn, opening his eyes, and fixing them on Mr. Carlyle’s.

“Afy Hallijohn.”

Captain Thorn continued to look at Mr. Carlyle, an amused expression, rather than any other, predominant on his features. “You are mistaken,” he observed. “Afy Hallijohn? I never heard the name before in my life.”

“Did you ever hear or know that a dreadful tragedy was enacted in this place about that period?” replied Mr. Carlyle, in a low, meaning tone. “That Afy Hallijohn’s father was—”

“Oh, stay, stay, stay,” hastily interrupted Captain thorn. “I am telling a story in saying I never heard her name. Afy Hallijohn? Why, that’s the girl Tom Herbert was telling me about—who—what was it?—disappeared after her father was murdered.”

“Murdered in his own cottage—almost in Afy’s presence—murdered by—by——” Mr. Carlyle recollected himself; he had spoken more impulsively than was his custom. “Hallijohn was my father’s faithful clerk for many years,” he more calmly concluded.

“And he who committed the murder was young Hare, son of Justice Hare, and brother to that attractive girl, Barbara. Your speaking of this has recalled, what they told me to my recollection, the first evening I was at the Herberts. Justice Hare was there, smoking—half a dozen pipes there were going at once. I also saw Miss Barbara that evening at your park gates, and Tom told me of the murder. An awful calamity for the Hares. I suppose that is the reason the young lady is Miss Hare still. One with her good fortune and good looks ought to have changed her name ere this.”

“No, it is not the reason,” returned Mr. Carlyle.

“What is the reason, then?”

A faint flush tinged the brow of Mr. Carlyle. “I know more than one who would be glad to get Barbara, in spite of the murder. Do not depreciate Miss Hare.”

“Not I, indeed; I like the young lady too well,” replied Captain Thorn. “The girl, Afy, has never been heard of since, has she?”

“Never,” said Mr. Carlyle. “Do you know her well?” he deliberately added.

“I never knew her at all, if you mean Afy Hallijohn. Why should you think I did? I never heard of her till Tom Herbert amused me with the history.”

Mr. Carlyle most devoutly wished he could tell whether the man before him was speaking the truth or falsehood. He continued,—

“Afy’s favors—I speak in no invidious sense—I mean her smiles and chatter—were pretty freely dispersed, for she was heedless and vain. Amidst others who got the credit for occasional basking in her rays, was a gentleman of the name of Thorn. Was it not yourself?”

Captain Thorn stroked his moustache with an air that seemed to say he could boast of his share of such baskings: in short, as if he felt half inclined to do it. “Upon my word,” he simpered, “you do me too much honor; I cannot confess to having been favored by Miss Afy.”

“Then she was not the—the damsel you speak of, who drove you—if I understand aright—from the locality?” resumed Mr. Carlyle, fixing his eyes upon him, so as to take in every tone of the answer and shade of countenance as he gave it.

“I should think not, indeed. It was a married lady, more’s the pity; young, pretty, vain and heedless, as you represent this Afy. Things went smoother after a time, and she and her husband—a stupid country yeoman—became reconciled; but I have been ashamed of it since I have grown wiser, and I do not care ever to be recognized as the actor in it, or to have it raked up against me.”

Captain Thorn rose and took a somewhat hasty leave. Was he, or was he not, the man? Mr. Carlyle could not solve the doubt.

Mr. Dill came in as he disappeared, closed the door, and advanced to his master, speaking in an under tone.

“Mr. Archibald, has it struck you that the gentleman just gone out may be the Lieutenant Thorn you once spoke to me about—he who had used to gallop over from Swainson to court Afy Hallijohn?”

“It has struck me so, most forcibly,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “Dill, I would give five hundred pounds out of my pocket this moment to be assured of the fact—if he is the same.”

“I have seen him several times since he has been staying with the Herberts,” pursued the old gentleman, “and my doubts have naturally been excited as to whether it could be the man in question. Curious enough, Bezant, the doctor, was over here yesterday from Swainson; and as I was walking with him, arm-inarm, we met Captain Thorn. The two recognized each other and bowed, merely as distant acquaintances. ‘Do you know that gentleman?’ said I to Bezant. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘it is Mr. Frederick.’ ‘Mr. Frederick with something added on to it,’ said I; ‘his name is Thorn.’ ‘I know that,’ returned Bezant; ‘but when he was in Swainson some years ago, he chose to drop the Thorn, and the town in general knew him only as Mr. Frederick.’ ‘What was he doing there, Bezant?’ I asked. ‘Amusing himself and getting into mischief,’ was the answer; ‘nothing very bad, only the random scrapes of young men.’ ‘Was he often on horseback, riding to a distance?’ was my next question. ‘Yes, that he was,’ replied Bezant; ‘none more fond of galloping across the country than he; I used to tell him he’d ride his horse’s tail off.’ Now, Mr. Archibald, what do you think?” concluded the old clerk; “and so far as I could make out, this was about the very time of the tragedy at Hallijohn’s.”

“Think?” replied Mr. Carlyle. “What can I think but that it is the ............