Isabella's eye was following him. "Who could the letter be from?—had it any thing to do with the state of mind he had lately evinced?"
When these questions were repeated to Mary, she answered,—"That most likely it was from the owner of the house he had taken, since it was plain he had given orders that some communication should be made to him as he asked for the letter, and not less so that it was a mere matter of business which could be read at any time, since he never even looked at it whilst he was with them."
Isabella accepted the explanation, but her heart was not satisfied with it; she remembered that Louisa used to pocket Charles's letters, and keep them as treasures to be opened only at bedtime, or when she could be alone. The business of a house might be supposed to concern her as much as himself, and it would have been natural to say what he had heard respecting it, Mary was mistaken.
Alas! Isabella was not. In that incident she imbibed the poison which circumstances almost compelled her to receive, since from the very first she had, in the modesty of her nature, held herself incapable of winning and retaining the affections of so superior a man as Glentworth, and his manners, even when most kind, had been calculated to confirm her fears. She had still been in his eyes the child with whom he had been wont to play, the little girl he felt most interested in, because ill-treated by her mother as plain, whilst
