Yet, after all, though the letter came from
the other brother, Ernest, it was this particular brother, Harold, she
had been talking to and admiring all the day; it was this particular
brother, Harold, who had gained her consent, and whom she had promised
to love and to marry. And at that moment it would have been doing Isabel
Walters an injustice not to admit that in her own soul she did then and
there really love Harold Carnegie. "Harold," she said slowly, as she took the locket and hung it round her
neck, "Harold. Yes, now I know. Then, Harold Carnegie, I shall take your
locket and wear it always as a keepsake from you." And she looked up at
him with a smile in which there was something more than mere passing
coquettish fancy. You see, he was really terribly in earnest; and the
very fact that he should have been so anxious to anticipate his brother,
and should have anticipated him successfully, made her woman's heart go
forth toward him instinctively. As Harold himself said, he was there
bodily present before her; while Ernest, the writer of the mysterious
letter, was nothing more to her in reality than a name and a shadow. Harold had asked her, and won her; and she was ready to love and cleave
to Harold from that day forth for that very reason. What woman of them
all has a better reason to give in the last resort for the faith that is
in her? V.

Meanwhile, at Clapham Junction, Ernest Carnegie had arrived three
minutes too late for the Surbiton train, and had been forced to wait for
the 2.40. Of that he thought little: they would wait for him, he knew,
if they waited an hour; for Mrs. Montagu would not for worlds have
missed the chance of showing her guests round Lady Portlebury's gardens. So he settled himself down comfortably in the snug corner of his
first-class carriage, and ran down by the later train in perfect
confidence that he would find the steam launch waiting. "No, sir, they've gone up the river in the launch, sir," said the man
who opened the door for him; "and, I beg pardon, sir, but I thought you
were one of the party." In a moment Ernest's fancy, quickened by his jealousy, jumped
instinctively at the true meaning of the man's mistake. "What," he said,
"was there a gentleman very like me, in a grey coat and straw hat--same
ribbon as this one?" "Yes, sir. Exactly, sir. Well, indeed, I should have said it was
yourself, sir; but I suppose it was the other Mr. Carnegie." "It was!" Ernest answered between his clenched teeth, almost
inarticulate with anger. "It was he. Not a doubt of it. Harold! I see it
all. The treachery--the base treachery! How long have they been gone, I
say? How long, eh?" "About half an hour, sir; they went up towards Henley, sir." Ernest Carnegie turned aside, reeling with wrath and indignation. That his brother, his own familiar twin-brother, should have played
him this abominable, disgraceful trick! The meanness of it! The deceit
of it! The petty spying and letter-opening of it! For somehow or
other--inconceivable how--Harold must have opened his brother's letters. And then, quick as lightning, for those two brains jumped together, the
thought of the blotting-book flashed across Ernest's mind. Why, he had
noticed this morning that a page was gone out of it. He must have read
the letters. And then the trains! Harold always got a time-table on the
first of each month, with his cursed methodical lawyer ways. And he had
never told him about the change of service. The dirty low trick! The
mean trick! Even to think of it made Ernest Carnegie sick at heart and
bitterly indignant. In a minute he saw it all and thought it all out. Why did he--how did
he? Why, he knew as clearly as if he could read Harold's thoughts,
exactly how the whole vile plot had first risen upon him, and worked
itself out within his traitorous brain. How? Ah, how? That was the
bitterest, the most horrible, the deadliest part of it all. Ernest
Carnegie knew, because he felt in his own inmost soul that, had he been
put in the same circumstances, he would himself have done exactly as
Harold had done. Yes, exactly in every respect. Harold must have seen the words in the
blotting-book, "My dear Miss Walters"--Ernest remembered how thickly and
blackly he had written--must have seen those words; and in their present
condition, either of the twins, jealous, angry, suspicious, half driven
by envy of one another out of their moral senses, would have torn out
the page then and there and read it all. He, too, would have kept
silence about the train; he would have gone down to Surbiton; he would
have proposed to Isabel Walters; he would have done in everything
exactly as he knew Harold must have done it; but that did not make his
anger and loathing for his brother any the weaker. On the contrary, it
only made them all the more terrible. His consciousness of his own equal
potential meanness roused his rage against Harold to a white heat. He
would have done the same himself, no doubt; yes; but Harold, the mean,
successful, actually accomplishing villain--Harold had really gone down
and done it all in positive fact and reality. Flushing scarlet and blanching white alternately with the fierceness of
his anger, Ernest Carnegie turned down, all on fire, to the river's
edge. Should he take a boat and row up after them to prevent the
supplanter at least from proposing to Isabel unopposed? That would at
any rate give him something to do--muscular work for his arms, if
nothing else, to counteract the fire within him; but on second thoughts,
no, it would be quite useless. The steam launch had had a good start of
him, and no oarsman could catch up with it now by any possibility. So he
walked about up and down near the river, chafing in soul and nursing his
wrath against Harold for three long weary hours. And all that time
Harold, false-hearted, fair-spoken, mean-spirited Harold, was enjoying
himself and playing the gallant to Isabel Walters! Minute by minute the hours wore away, and with every minute Ernest's
indignation grew deeper and deeper. At last he heard the snort of the
steam-launch ploughing its way lustily down the river, and he stood on
the bank waiting for the guilty Harold to disembark. As Harold stepped from the launch, and gave his hand to Isabel, he saw
the white and bloodless face of his brother looking up at him
contemptuously and coldly from beside the landing. Harold passed ashore
and close by him, but Ernest never spoke a word. He only looked a moment
at Isabel, and said to her with enforced calmness, "You got my letter,
Miss Walters?" Isabel, hardly comprehending the real solemnity of the occasion,
answered with a light smile, "I did, Mr. Carnegie, but you didn't keep
your appointment. Your brother came, and he has been beforehand with
you." And she touched his hand lightly and went on to join her hostess. Still Ernest Carnegie said nothing, but walked on, as black as night,
beside his brother.