Walter soothed and coaxed; but Dolores stood firm.  Like a rock in the sea, no assault could move her.  As things stood at present, she cried, they were no longer engaged.  After she had seen her mother and talked it all over, she would write to him once more, and tell him what she thought of it.

And, crimson to the finger-tips with shame and modesty, she rushed from his presence up to her own dark bed-room.

XXI.

Next morning early, Dolly left Combe Neville on her way to London.  When she reached the station, Walter was on the platform with a bunch of white roses.  He handed them to her deferentially as she took her seat in the third-class carriage; and so sobered was Dolly by this great misfortune that she forgot even to feel a passing pang of shame that Walter should see her travel in that humble fashion.  “Remember,” he whispered in her ear, as the train steamed out, “we are still engaged; I hold you to your promise.”

And Dolly, blushing maidenly shame and distress, shook her head decisively.  “Not now,” she answered.  “I must wait till I know the truth.  It has always been kept from me.  And now I will know it.”

She had not slept that night.  All the way up to London, she kept turning her doubt over.  The more she thought of it, the deeper it galled her.  Her wrath waxed bitter against Herminia for this evil turn she had wrought.  The smouldering anger of years blazed forth at last.  Had she blighted her daughter’s life, and spoiled so fair a future by obstinate adherence to those preposterous ideas of hers?

Never in her life had Dolly loved her mother.  At best, she had felt towards her that contemptuous toleration which inferior minds often extend to higher ones.  And now—­why, she hated her.

In London, as it happened, that very morning, Herminia, walking across Regent’s Park, had fallen in with Harvey Kynaston, and their talk had turned upon this self-same problem.

“What will you do when she asks you about it, as she must, sooner or later?” the man inquired.

And Herminia, smiling that serene sweet smile of hers, made answer at once without a second’s hesitation, “I shall confess the whole truth to her.”

“But it might be so bad for her,” Harvey Kynaston went on.  And then he proceeded to bring up in detail casuistic objections on the score of a young girl’s modesty; all of which fell flat on Herminia’s more honest and consistent temperament.

“I believe in the truth,” she said simply; “and I’m never afraid of it.  I don’t think a lie, or even a suppression, can ever be good in the end for any one.  The Truth shall make you Free.  That one principle in life can guide one through everything.”

In the evening, when Dolly came home, her mother ran out proudly and affectionately to kiss her.  But Dolly drew back her face with a gesture of displeasure, nay, almost of shrinking.  “Not now, mother!” she cried.  “I have something to ask you about.  Till I know the truth, I can never kiss you.”