Of course Pottinger was flattered, and answered in the negative very reluctantly.

“Not but what Mr. Stafford, miss, isn’t as particular as any army gent could be.  I should be sorry to turn out a badly groomed ’oss for Mr. Stafford’s eyes to rest on, miss.  He’s as kind-hearted a master as a man could desire to have, but that’s about the one thing Mr. Stafford wouldn’t stand, miss.”

“I suppose not,” she said.  “Are you going to ride into Bryndermere this morning, Pottinger?  If so, I should be glad if you would take these notes to the linen draper’s and the chemist’s, and bring me back the things I have written for.”

“Certainly, miss,” said Pottinger; then he remembered Stafford’s order, and looked anything but certain.  “Would it do late in the morning, miss?  I have to go somewhere first.”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, “where shall I put the letters—­in this wallet?”

Pottinger answered in the affirmative and thanked her, and she unfastened the wallet, talking to him as she did so.  “Is that a swelling on that near fore leg, Pottinger?” she said, suddenly, pointing to Adonis.

Pottinger started and regarded her with a look of horror, and, of course, instantly knelt down to examine the suspected member.  Long before he had come up again with a breath of relief and a smiling “No, miss, there is nothing the matter with it,” she had looked into the wallet and seen Stafford’s letter.

“Oh, I thought there was,” she said.  “Have you finished your horses?”

“No, miss,” he replied.  “I have the master’s hunter and the mare you ride to do yet.”

She nodded and went out of the stable, humming one of her songs; but she did not go very far.  In five minutes she back again.

“Oh, Pottinger, don’t trouble about those letters.  I will ride into Bryndermere myself.”

Pottinger was in the mare’s stall, and Mause stopped him as he was coming forward, by saying: 

“Don’t trouble; I’ll take the letters from the wallet.”

With Stafford’s letter amongst her own in her pocket, she went quickly, and yet without apparent hurry, to her own room, sent away her maid on an errand, and slipped the bolt in the door.  Rapidly she lit her silver spirit-lamp and heated the water almost to boiling-point, and held the envelope of Stafford’s letter over it until the gum was melted and the flap came open.  Then she took out the letter, and, throwing herself back in an easy-chair, read it slowly.

At first, as she read, her face burned, then it grew pale, and still paler; every word of the bitter farewell, of the renunciation, written as if with a man’s heart’s blood, stabbed her and tortured her with the pangs of jealousy.  Once she started to her feet, her hands clenched, her head thrown back her eyes flashing; a superb figure—­the tigress aroused.  At that instant she was minded to take the letter and fling it in Stafford’s face, and with it fling back the pledge which he had given her the night before; then she collapsed, as it were, and sank into a chair, dropping the letter and covering her face with her hands.  She could not.  The strength of her love made her weak as water where that love was concerned.  Though her pride called upon her to surrender Stafford, she could not respond to it.