While she sang, there was a rap at the front-door, and, just as she concluded, the prim maid entered with a letter upon a salver.

In an instant her heart gave a bound.  She recognised the handwriting.  It was Walter’s.

The moment the girl had left the room she tore open the envelope, and, holding her breath, read what was written within.

The words were: 

“DEAREST HEART,—­Your letter came to me after several wanderings.  It has caused me to think and to wonder if, after all, I may be mistaken—­if, after all, I have misjudged you, darling.  I gave you my heart, it is true.  But you spurned it—­under compulsion, you say!  Why under compulsion?  Who is it who compels you to act against your will and against your better nature?  I know that you love me as well and as truly as I love you yourself.  I long to see you with just as great a longing.  You are mine—­mine, my own—­and being mine, you must tell me the truth.

“I forgive you, forgive you everything.  But I cannot understand what Flockart means by saying that I have spoken of you.  I have not seen the man, nor do I wish to see him.  Gabrielle, do not trust him.  He is your enemy, as he is mine.  He has lied to you.  As grim circumstance has forced you to treat me cruelly, let us hope that smiling fortune will be ours at last.  The world is very small.  I have just met my old friend Edgar Hamilton, who was at college with me, and who, I find, is secretary to some wealthy foreigner, a certain Baron de Hetzendorf.  I have not seen him for years, and yet he turns up here, merry and prosperous, after struggling for a long time with adverse circumstances.

“But, Gabrielle, your letter has puzzled and alarmed me.  The more I think of it, the more mystifying it all becomes.  I must see you, and you must tell me the truth—­the whole truth.  We love each other, dear heart, and no one shall force you to lie again to me as you did in that letter you wrote from Glencardine.  You wish to see me, darling.  You shall—­and you shall tell me the truth.  My dear love, au revoir—­until we meet, which I hope may be almost as soon as you receive this letter.—­My love, my sweetheart, I am your own WALTER.”

She sat staring at the letter.  He demanded an explanation.  He intended to come there and demand it!  And the explanation was one which she dared not give.  Rather that she took her own life than tell him the ghastly circumstances.

He had met an old chum named Hamilton.  Was this the Mr. Hamilton who had snatched her from that deadly peril?  The name of Hetzendorf sounded to be Austrian or German.  How strange if Mr. Hamilton her rescuer were the same man who had been years ago her lover’s college friend!

She passed her white hand across her brow, trying to collect her senses.

She had longed—­ah, with such an intense longing!—­for a response to that letter of hers, and here at last it had come.  But what a response!  He intended her to make confession.  He demanded to know the actual truth.  What could she do?  How should she act?