"Parted, Sarah?"
"Yes, parted for ever. If you choose to believe others before me, it shows you haven't much love for me left."
"You don't mean what you say, I am sure, Sarah," exclaimed the bewildered lover.
"Yes, I do; and a good deal more, if I choose to say it. And I will say it," passionately responded the young lady, who, though equally agitated and troubled, was not going to show it, as she afterwards declared. "Yes, I will say it; and I say that you have used me very badly, Walter Wilson, to be hearing all the ill-natured, spiteful, mean stories Elizabeth has been all along stuffing you up with. Here you have been days and days in this very place, and never coming near me—"
"I have been at my father's house, my old home," put in Walter.
"Yes, you have, I know; and you have been listening to all their wicked inventions about me."
"I had a right to know what father and mother had got to say, let alone Elizabeth and the rest," pleaded the young man, thus put upon his defence.
"No, you hadn't when it was about me; you know you hadn't. I was the first you ought to have come to, and would have come to if you hadn't been tired of me, and wanted to get rid of me. But I know what it is, that Mary Burgess—"
Walter started from Sarah's side—they had been walking in the old lovers' walk side by side, but not arm-in-arm, or arm-encircled—and paced several steps rapidly forward. Then he turned, but did not retrace his steps.
"Have you anything more to say?" he asked, hoarsely.