stanch,
patient darling--not her own old lover--could read her burning, tender,
suffering words and pass them by without a word of answer. And with
this weight of despair and pain upon her heart, she went back to the
wearisome routine of Brabazon Lodge,--went back heavy with humiliation
and misery which she scarcely realized,--went back suffering as no one
who knew her--not even Grif himself--could ever have understood that it
was possible for her to suffer. No innocent coquetries now, no spirit,
no jests; for the present at least she had done with them, too.

"You are not in your usual spirits, my dear," said Miss MacDowlas.

"No," she answered, quietly, "I am not."

This state of affairs continued for four days, and then one morning,
sitting at her sewing in the breakfast-room, she was startled almost
beyond self-control by a servant's announcement that a visitor had
arrived.

"One of your sisters, ma'am," said the parlor-maid. "Not the youngest, I
think."

She was in the room in two seconds, and flew to Aimee, trembling all
over with excitement.

"Not a letter!" she cried, hysterically. "It is n't a letter,--it can't
be!" And she put her hand to her side and fairly panted.

The poor little wise one confronted her with something like fear. She
could not bear to tell her the ill news she had come to break.

"Dolly, dear!" she said, "please sit down; and--please don't look at me
so. It isn't good news. I must tell you the truth; it is bad news, cruel
news. Oh, don't look so!"

They were standing near the sofa, and Dolly gave one little moan, and
sank down beside it.

"Cruel news!" she cried, throwing up her hand. "Yes, I might have known
that,--I might have known that it would be cruel, if it was news at all
Every one is cruel,--the whole world is cruel; even Grif,--even Grif!"

Aimee burst into tears.

"Oh, Dolly, I did my best for you!" she said. "I did, indeed; but you
must try to bear it, dear,--it is your own letter back again."

Then the kneeling figure seemed to stiffen and grow rigid in a second.
Dolly turned her deathly face, with her eyes aflame and dilated.

"Did _he_ send it back to me?" she asked, in a slow, fearful whisper.

Her expression was so hard and dreadful a one that Aimee sprang to her
side and caught hold of her.

"No,--no!" she said; "not so bad as that! He would never have done that.
He has never had it. He has gone away; we don't know where. It came from
the dead-letter of