llage street to her aunt's home.

He, on his part, turned upon his heel with a muttered remark and set out
again to walk towards Nassington Station, whence, after nearly an hour's
wait in the village inn, he took train to Peterborough.

The girl had once again defied him.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE WHISPERS AGAIN

Was it really true what Flockart had told her? Did Walter actually wish
to see her again? At one moment she believed in her lover's strong,
passionate devotion to her, for had she not seen it displayed in a
hundred different ways? But the next she recollected how that man
Flockart had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience in the past,
how he had often lied so circumstantially that she had believed his
words to be the truth. Once, indeed, he had openly declared to her that
one of his maxims was never to tell the truth unless obliged. After
dinner, a simple meal served in the poky little dining-room, she made an
excuse to go to her room, and there sat for a long time, deeply
reflecting. Should she write to Walter? Would it be judicious to explain
Flockart's visit, and how he had urged their reconciliation? If she
wrote, would it lower her dignity in her lover's eyes? That was the
great problem which now troubled her. She sat staring before her
undecided. She recalled all that Flockart had told her. He was the
emissary of Lady Heyburn without a doubt. The girl had told him openly
of her decision to speak the truth and expose him, but he had only
laughed at her. Alas! she knew his true character, unscrupulous and
pitiless. But she placed him aside.

Recollection of Walter--the man who had held her so often in his arms
and pressed his hot lips to hers, the man who was her father's firm
friend and whose uprightness and honesty of purpose she had ever
admired--crowded upon her. Should she write to him? Rigid and staring,
she sat in her chair, her little white hands clenched, as she tried to
summon courage. It had been she who had written declaring that their
secret engagement must be broken, she who had condemned herself.
Therefore, had she not a right to satisfy that longing she had had
through months, the longing to write to him once again. The thought
decided her; and, going to the table whereon the lamp was burning, she
sat down, and after some reflection, penned a letter as follows:--

"MY SWEETHEART, MY DARLING, MY OWN, MY SOUL--MINE--ONLY MINE,--I am
wondering how and where you are! True, I wrote