“He at least will not betray me to my foes!” she thought.
Alas! she dreamed not that her cruel, jealous cousin would be on the watch for the letter, and that it was fated to fall into her hands.
“I feared, I dreaded this,” Amber muttered, bitterly; then she thrust the letter inside her bosom, to read it at another time.
“Cecil shall never see it, never! That doll-faced girl shall never rob me of my darling!” she vowed, vindictively, as she turned toward Bonnycastle, shivering through her rich sealskin wraps, for the day was bitterly cold and wintry, the chill of the hastening December days already in the air.
As she drove along, the beautiful face became white and set, and an intense light burned in the golden-hazel eyes. There was a struggle before her that was bitterly humiliating to contemplate, yet she did not flinch from it. She was determined that ere the sun set she would be Cecil’s wedded wife.
“Then I can laugh at fate!” she cried, grimly, as she sprang from her phaeton, threw the reins to a servant, and entered the doors of Bonnycastle.
Mrs. Grant, who was a semi-invalid, was always hovering over a bright open wood-fire, and rose hospitably to greet her guest.
“How cold and pale you look, my dear. Here, sit close to the fire,” she cried, kissing Amber, and drawing forward a large rocking-chair for her occupancy.
Amber dropped into the chair, put her face in her hands, and burst into a passion of genuine, fitful sobbing. It came quite naturally, for she was wrought up to the verge of hysteria.
“Oh, Amber, what has happened? My dear, dear girl, what troubles you?” implored Mrs. Grant, in surprise and distress, but for some time she received no satisfaction.