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Was it really true what Flockart had told her? Did Walter actually wish to see her again? At one moment she believed in her lover's strong, passionate devotion to her, for had she not seen it displayed in a hundred different ways? But the next she recollected how that man Flockart had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience in the past, how he had often lied so circumstantially that she had believed his words to be the truth. Once, indeed, he had openly declared to her that one of his maxims was never to tell the truth unless obliged. After dinner, a simple meal served in the poky little dining-room, she made an excuse to go to her room, and there sat for a long time, deeply reflecting. Should she write to Walter? Would it be judicious to explain Flockart's visit, and how he had urged their reconciliation? If she wrote, would it lower her dignity in her lover's eyes? That was the great problem which now troubled her. She sat staring before her undecided.
She recalled all that Flockart had told her. He was the emissary of Lady Heyburn without a doubt. The girl had told him openly of her decision to speak the truth and expose him, but he had only laughed at her. Alas! she knew his true character, unscrupulous and pitiless. But she placed him aside.