The well-thumbed books in the village library she had read, as well as those in the possession of her aunt.  She had tried needlework, problems of patience, and the translation of a few chapters of an Italian novel into English in order to occupy her time.  But those hours when she was alone in her little upstairs room with the sloping roof passed, alas! so very slowly.

Upon her, ever oppressive, were thoughts of that bitter past.  At one staggering blow she had lost all that had made her young life worth living—­her father’s esteem and her lover’s love.  She was innocent, entirely innocent, of the terrible allegations against her, and yet she was so utterly defenceless!

Often she sat at her little window for hours watching the lethargy of village life in the street below, that rural life in which the rector and the schoolmaster were the principal figures.  The dullness of it all was maddening.  Her aunt’s mid-Victorian primness, her snappishness towards the trembling maid, and the thousand and one rules of her daily life irritated her and jarred upon her nerves.

So, in order to kill time, and at the same time to study the antiquities of the neighbourhood—­her father having taught her so much deep antiquarian knowledge—­it had been her habit for three months past to take long walks for many miles across the country, accompanied by the black collie Rover belonging to a young farmer who lived at the end of the village.  The animal had one day attached itself to her while she was taking a walk on the Apethorpe road; and now, by her feeding him daily and making a pet of him, the girl and the dog had become inseparable.  By long walks and short train-journeys she had, in three months, been able to inspect most of the antiquities of Northamptonshire.  Much of the history of the county was intensely interesting:  the connection of old Fotheringhay with the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots, the beauties of Peterborough Cathedral, the splendid old Tudor house of Deene (the home of the Earls of Cardigan), the legends of King John concerning King’s Cliffe, the gaunt splendour of ruined Kirby, and the old-world charm of Apethorpe.  All these, and many others, had great attraction for her.  She read them up in books she ordered from London, and then visited the old places with all the enthusiasm of a spectacled antiquary.

Every day, no matter what the weather, she might be seen, in her thick boots, burberry, and tam o’shanter, trudging along the roads or across the fields accompanied by the faithful collie.  The winter had been a comparatively mild one, with excessive rain.  But no downpour troubled her.  She liked the rain to beat into her face, for the dismal, monotonous cheerlessness of the brown fields, bare trees, and muddy roads was in keeping with the tragedy of her own young life.

She knew that her aunt Emily disliked her.  The covert sneers, the caustic criticisms, and the go-to-meeting attitude of the old lady irritated the girl beyond measure.  She was not wanted in that painfully prim cottage, and had been made to understand it from the first day.