"Stop him, stop him, father!" shrieked the unhappy girl. "Oh, father, father! You don't know what you have done! Walter—dear Walter!"
But Walter was gone.
The next day, when Sarah, unable to leave her bed, after the fearful hysterical fit in which she had on the previous evening been found by the sympathising servant-of-all-work, was trying to recall the particulars of that last meeting and parting, a packet was placed in her hands by her attendant. Tremblingly she opened it. It was as she thought. It contained all the little love-gifts she had in days gone by made over to her cousin Walter, and all the letters she had ever written to him. There was no other writing; not a scrap from him to soften the terrible blow. Yes, it was all over between the two.
"Darling, darling, don't take on so, don't 'ee then?" sobbed Meg, the handmaiden, when Sarah once and again gave way to paroxysms of grief. "Oh, deary, deary me; what is to be done? And didn't I think how it would turn out? But don't 'ee fret so, darling! It'll all come round again, it will, if you only keep up a good heart."
But Sarah knew better than this.
That same day Walter left his home, and travelled, with as hot speed as he could, to rejoin his friend Ralph.
[CHAPTER XI.]
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.