and covering her face with her hands.
She could not. The strength of her love made her weak as water where
that love was concerned. Though her pride called upon her to surrender
Stafford, she could not respond to it.

Swaying to and fro, with her eyes covered as if to hide her shame, she
tried to tell herself that Stafford's was only a transient fancy for
this girl, that it was mere flirtation, a vulgar _liaison_ that she
would teach him to forget.

"He shall, he shall!" she cried behind her hands, as if the words were
wrung from her in her anguish of wounded pride and rejected love. "I
will teach him! There is no art that woman ever used that I will not
use--they say I am beautiful: if I am, my beauty shall minister to him
as no woman's beauty has ever ministered before. Cold to all the rest
of the world, I will be to him a fire which shall warm his life and
make it a heaven--It is only because he saw her first: if he had seen
me--Oh, curse her, curse her! Last night, while he was talking to me,
even while he was kissing me, he was thinking of her. But she shall not
have him! She has lost and I have won and I will keep him!"

She dashed her hand across her eyes, though there were no tears in
them, and stood upright, holding herself tensely as if she were
battling for calm; then she replaced the poignant note in its envelope,
and went back to the stables. Again she met no one, for those who were
down were in at breakfast.

"I have changed my mind, Pottinger," she said; "and will be glad if you
will take the notes, please. See, I have pat them back in the wallet."

"Certainly, miss!" said Pottinger, and he touched his forehead two or
three times, and coloured and smiled awkwardly and looked at her with a
new and vivid interest. One of the maids had run into the stable,
during Maud's absence, and had told him the news that his master was
engaged to Miss Maude Falconer; for the servants, who are so quick to
discover all our little secrets, had already learnt this one, and the
servants' hall was buzzing with it.

CHAPTER XXV.

That morning Ida came down-stairs singing, not loudly, but in the soft
undertone which a girl uses when she is supremely happy and she has
hopes of seeing the cause of her happiness very soon. All through
breakfast, while Mr. Heron read his letters, opening them and reading
them stealthily as usual, her heart was singing its love-song to her,
and she was wondering whether she would meet