e between his social position and that
of women of Miss Wycliffe's class, she stopped him with the assertion
that not one of them, with all their money, was worthy to be his wife.
She added humbly that she knew how little worthy she was herself.

As if the approaching end of their journey drove her on to lay her soul
bare before him, she told him every detail of that interview with her
mistress in her room, down to the moment when she had groped blindly
for the window and looked out through her tears to see him pass.

He had planned to leave her some distance from the bishop's house, but
now caution was useless. The street, however, was deserted
thereabouts, though the night was still young, and no one saw their
farewell. As he drove away and glanced back to see her figure still
motionless against the snow, he experienced some of the punishment that
comes to him who plays at ducks and drakes with a woman's heart.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONFESSION

An hour later, Emmet approached the college through the maple walk with
very different feelings from those he had entertained when he watched
the sunset behind the towers. Then he had felt the glory of
individualism, his own vivid power as opposed to the lethargy of
institutions. But his recent experience had started the pendulum back,
and now it swung to the other extreme. His self-confidence had been
followed by an exhibition of weakness. He who could defy and control
men was helpless before the eyes of a woman; he who had burned with
indignation at the corrupt politics of his enemies, who had sacrificed
his interests to principle by showing Bat Quayle the door, had gone
forth and sacrificed his principles to his pleasure at the very first
opportunity.

Though by nature objective rather than introspective, his experiences
since his first meeting with Felicity were teaching him by hard blows
the rudiments of his own psychology. Had he been unmoral, he would
have remained unscrupulous and unreflecting, but the claims of right
would not down. He saw the better way and approved it, but followed
the worse, and his knowledge of this inconsistency was gall and
bitterness to his soul. He was as genuinely repentant as it is
possible for a healthy man to be while the taste of life is still
sweet; yet without doubt a large measure of his repentance was the fear
of discovery. In the recesses of his mind lurked a hope that Leigh
would be able to show him some way out of