But suddenly the laugh died on her lips, as there flashed across her mind the words Jessie had said.

Stafford was engaged to Maude Falconer, the girl up at the Villa, whose beauty and grace and wealth all the dale was talking of.
Oh, God! Was there any truth in it, was there any truth in it?
Had Stafford, indeed, written that cruel letter?
Had he left her forever, forever, forever?
Should she never see him again, never again hear him tell her that he loved her, would always love her?
The room spun round with her, she suddenly felt sick and faint, and, reeling, caught at the carved mantel-shelf to prevent herself from falling.

Then gradually the death-like faintness passed, and she became conscious that her father's voice was calling to her, and she clasped her head again and swept the hair from her forehead, and clenched her hands in the effort to gain her presence of mind and self-command.
She picked up the letter, and, with a shudder, thrust it in her bosom, as Cleopatra might have thrust the asp which was to destroy her; then with leaden feet, she crossed the hall and opened the library door, and saw her father standing by the table clutching some papers in one hand, and gesticulating wildly with the other.

Dizzily, for there seemed to be a mist before her eyes, she went to him and laid a hand upon his arm.
"What is it, father ?" she said, "Are you ill?
What is the matter ?" He gazed at her vacantly and struck his hand on the table, after the manner of a child in a senseless passion.
"Lost! Lost! All lost!" he mumbled, jumbling the words together almost incoherently.
"What is lost, father ?" she asked.
"Everything, everything!" he cried, in the same manner.

"I can't remember, can't remember! It's ruin, utter ruin! My head--I can't think, can't remember! Lost, lost!" In her terror, she put her young arm round him as a mother encircles her child in the delirium of fever.
"Try and tell me, father!" she implored him.