“Tell her one of the lads fra’ the Grange wants a word wi’ her,” said Jack, winking one eye, upon which, with another toss of the head, the barmaid vanished; and a few moments later Elsie Wray, who looked pale, agitated, and handsome, appeared.
Jack touched his forelock and went up to her, and produced Tom Henderson’s letter.
“The young master sent this for you, miss,” he said.
Elsie put out a shapely brown hand and eagerly caught at the letter, and then without another word retired with it and ran hastily upstairs to her own little bedroom to read it.
When she got there she tore it open with trembling fingers, and, as her eyes fell on the insulting words it contained, the poor girl turned deadly pale, and staggered back as if something had struck her.
“How dare he! How dare he!” she cried aloud, in sharp bitter tones of anguish.
Again she read the cruel words. She stared at them as though they burned into her brain, and then with sudden passion she flung the letter on the floor and trampled it beneath her feet.
“The coward! The base coward!” she muttered. “So he would buy me off, would he? Me! But he shall see; he shall see!”
She began to pace up and down the room after this, evidently revolving some question in her mind. Then she suddenly remembered that the groom from Stourton would probably be waiting for an answer. And with her eyes flashing, and her head thrown back, she returned to the bar in the room below.
Jack was still sitting there drinking his beer, and he rose when Elsie appeared.