"But never mind! I have known the good woman suffer from these attacks of depression before. It will pass and she will be restored to her accustomed cheerfulness. I have already told her that her symptoms point to indigestion, to which she replied darkly that by some oversight the last pig was killed at the waning of the moon, and that possibly the pork was 'a bit unheartsome' in consequence. Come and see her some day if you can. I dare say the sight of you will appease the bees and restore her to sanity."
"I will if I possibly can," returned Philippa doubtfully. "But you know, I do not like to go very far in case Francis might ask for me. Could you not come and see me?"
Isabella hesitated. "I do not think I will come to Bessacre unless you really want me--for anything particular, I mean. If I can be of any use to you, send for me, and I will come at once; but otherwise I think it will be better not."
They parted soon afterwards, and Isabella trudged back to her home across the sunlit moor with slow and lagging step. Philippa's words had indeed "knocked at her heart and found her thoughts at home," and the old wound throbbed with a dull fierce ache. She, with her intimate knowledge of Francis, could picture to herself the whole course of recent events.
Had she not known him as a lover, wooing Phil with all the strength of his early manhood, all the force of the flood-tide of his love? Had she not seen him curbing that love lest any demonstration of too open affection might harm his cause with the woman who had not "liked heroics," wooing with innocent devices and tender subtlety? And she could almost hear the words he must have spoken when again he wooed. Small wonder that Philippa's heart had awaked to his appeal. The fact of her own affection, although it did not entirely blind her, distorted her outlook. She only saw that Francis' peace of mind must be preserved at all costs, and it was not likely that she, who would have sacrificed herself gladly for his lightest good, could bring a clear judgment to bear upon the ethics of the case. Had she been in Philippa's place no question of abstract morality would have carried weight with her. She would have taken any action which would have saved him from distress, just as surely as she would have plunged into fire to rescue him.
She would never have stooped to casuistry or self-deception, but she would never have hesitated. She was not what may be called a religious woman as we understand the term. She believed with all her heart in a Supreme God whom she worshipped, but she could not agree to the restrictions which, it seemed to her, orthodoxy set upon His power, and she had no sympathy with women who trample heedlessly upon the feelings of others in a frantic effort to save their own souls. The truth being that Isabella, like so many of her sex who lead solitary lives, had constructed for herself a curious philosophy out of the hotch-potch of maxims, theories, prejudices and principles which she called her opinions, and it had at any rate the merit of being a philosophy of self-sacrifice and self-control.