risk the interview. Coming at such an hour, that message was
suspicious. She, moreover, naturally had learned to dread her
grandmother's words when they looked most innocent. Thus she,
too, waited--lacking the resolution to descend.

As she walked homeward from church she realized that she must take
steps at once to discard Rowan as the duty of her social position.
And here tangible perplexities instantly wove themselves across her
path. Conscience had promptly arraigned him at the altar of
religion. It was easy to condemn him there. And no one had the
right to question that arraignment and that condemnation. But
public severance of all relations with him in her social world--how
should she accomplish that and withhold her justification?

Her own kindred would wish to understand the reason. The branches
of these scattered far and near were prominent each in its sphere,
and all were intimately bound together by the one passion of
clannish allegiance to the family past. She knew that Rowan's
attentions had continued so long and had been so marked, that
her grandmother had accepted marriage between them as a foregone
conclusion, and in letters had disseminated these prophecies
through the family connection. Other letters had even come back
to Isabel, containing evidence only too plain that Rowan had
been discussed and accepted in domestic councils. Against all
inward protests of delicacy, she had been forced to receive
congratulations that in this marriage she would preserve the
traditions of the family by bringing into it a man of good blood
and of unspotted name; the two idols of all the far separated
hearthstones.