love poem; not addressed to her,
but about her; a pretty poem, she thought, delicately felt and
gracefully worded. It surprised her, but only for a moment; thinking,
she accepted it as something natural, and was touched by the tribute.
She put it carefully away--knowing it by heart.

Impertinence! Surely not. Long ago she had reproached herself with her
half-coquetry to Piers Otway, an error of exuberant spirits when she
was still very young. There was no obscuring the fact; deliberately she
had set herself to draw him away from his studies; she had made it a
point of pride to show herself irresistible. Where others failed in
their attack upon his austere seclusion, _she_ would succeed, and
easily. She had succeeded only too well, and it never quite ceased to
trouble her conscience. Now, learning that even after four years her
victim still remained loyal, she thought of him with much gentleness,
and would have scorned herself had she felt scorn of his devotion.

No other of her wooers had ever written her a poem; no other was
capable of it. It gave Piers a distinction in her mind which more than
earned her pardon.

But--poor fellow!--he must surely know that she could never respond to
his romantic feeling. It was pure romance, and charming--if only it did
not mean sorrow to him and idle hopes. Such a love as this, distant,
respectful, she would have liked to keep for years, for a lifetime. If
only she could be sure that romance was as dreamily delightful to her
poet as to her!

The worst of it was that Piers Otway had suffered a sad wrong, an
injustice which, when she heard of it, made her nobly angry. A month
after the death of the old philosopher at Hawes, Mrs. Hannaford
startled her with a strange story. The form it took was this: That
Piers, having for a whispered reason no share in his father's
possessions, had perforce given up his hopes of commercial enterprise,
and returned to his old subordinate position at Odessa. The two
legitimate sons would gladly have divided with him their lawful due,
but Piers refused this generosity, would not hear of it for a moment,
stood on his pride, and departed. Thus Mrs. Hannaford, who fully
believed what she said; and as she had her information direct from the
eldest son, Daniel Otway, there could be no doubt as to its
correctness. Piers had behaved well; he could not take alms from his
half-brothers. But what a monstrous thing that accident and the law of
the land left him