She herself had written to her old lover.
MY DEAR ARTHUR, There has been so much true friendship and affection between us that I do not like that you should hear from any one but myself the news that I am going to be married to Mr.Lopez.We are to be married on the 28th of November,--this day month.
Yours affectionately, EMILY WHARTON.
To this she received a very short reply;-- DEAR EMILY, I am as I always have been.
Yours, A.F.
He sent her no present, nor did he say a word to her beyond this; but in her anger against the Herefordshire people she never included Arthur Fletcher.

She pored over the little note a score of times, and wept over it, and treasured it up among her inmost treasures, and told herself that it was a thousand pities.

She could talk, and did talk, to Ferdinand about the Whartons, and about old Mrs.Fletcher, and described to him the arrogance and the stiffness and the ignorance of the Herefordshire squirearchy generally; but she never spoke to him of Arthur Fletcher,--except in that one narrative of her past life, in which, girl-like, she told her lover of the one other lover who had loved her.
But these things of course gave a certain melancholy to the occasion which perhaps was increased by the season of the year,--by the November fogs, and by the emptiness and general sadness of the town.
And added to this was the melancholy of old Mr.Wharton himself.
After he had given his consent to the marriage he admitted a certain amount of intimacy with his son-in-law, asking him to dinner, and discussing with him matters of general interest,--but never, in truth, opening his heart to him.

Indeed, how can any man open his heart to one whom he dislikes?
At best he can only pretend to open his heart, and even this Mr.Wharton would not do.

And very soon after the engagement Lopez left London and went to the Duke's place in the country.