elf because of my self-denial. Betty understood my sacrifice
and appreciated it, feeling sure that she need not thereafter restrain
herself for the purpose of restraining me.

During those times I was making an honest effort to do the right by this
beautiful child-woman and to save my own honor unsullied from the sin of
making her unhappy for life through winning her love beyond her power to
recall; and my effort toward the right, like all such efforts, achieved
at least a part of the good for which I strove.

One day after our visit to Betty's room, Frances asked me to take her to
see George. I suspected that she had seen him frequently, but was not
sure. I objected, but changed my mind when she said:--

"Very well. I prefer going alone."

I shall not try to describe the scene between them. We found George
alone, and she sprang to him as the iron springs to the magnet.

I knew then, if never before, that there could be no happiness in this
world for her away from him. Whether she would find it with him was
impossible for me to know, but I saw that she was in the grip of a mighty
passion, and I could only hope that a way would open to save her.

Hamilton's fortunes would need to mend a great deal before he could
or would ask her to be his wife, for now he was at the bottom of the
ladder. He lost no opportunity to impress this disagreeable truth upon
her, but his honest efforts to hold himself aloof only increased her
respect and love for him. It not only convinced her that notwithstanding
his past life, he was a man of honor capable of resisting himself and of
protecting her, but it gave him the quality so irresistible to a
woman--unattainability.

Taking it all in all, my poor beautiful cousin was falling day by
day deeper into an abyss of love from which she could in no way
extricate herself. In short, level-headed Frances had got far out
of plumb, and, though she struggled desperately, she could not right
herself, nor could any one help her. I fully realized that the small
amount of self-restraint and passivity she still retained would give
way to disastrous activity when the time should come for her to part
with George and lose him forever. But I could see no way to save her
unless I could induce George to leave England at once, for good and
all.

At times the fates seem to fly to a man's help, and in this instance they
came to me most graciously that same day in Whitehall, in the person of
my friend the Co