he could not have deceived herself so completely. It was this
craving to fill the place of her lost art,--but oh, what morbid nonsense
it had all been! Why, for the first time in her life, did she feel
ashamed to meet Professor Fortescue? Obviously, it was not because she
thought he would disapprove of her breaking the social law. It was
because she had fallen below her own standard, because she had been
hypocritical with herself, played herself false, and acted contemptibly,
hatefully! Professor Fortescue's mere presence had hunted out the truth
from its hiding-place. He had made further self-sophistication
impossible. She buried her face in her hands, in an agony of shame. She
had known all along, that this had not been a profound and whole-hearted
sentiment. She had known all along, of what a poor feverish nature it
was; yet she had chosen to persuade herself that it was all, or nearly
all, that she had dreamed of a perfect human relationship. She had tried
to arrange facts in such a light as to simulate that idea. It was so
paltry, so contemptible. Why could she not at least have been honest
with herself, and owned to the nature of the infatuation? That, at any
rate, would have been straightforward. Her self-scorn made the colour
surge into her cheeks and burn painfully over neck and brow. "How little
one knows oneself. Here am I, who rebel against the beliefs of others,
sinning against my own. Here am I, who turn up my nose at the popular
gods, deriding my own private and particular gods in their very temples!
That I have done, and heaven alone knows where I should have stopped in
the wild work, if this had not happened. Professor Fortescue has no need
to speak. His gentleness, his charity, are as rods to scourge one!"

CHAPTER XLIV.

When Professor Fortescue called at the Red House, he found that the
blinds, in the drawing-room, were all half down. Hadria held the
conversation to the subject of his plans. He knew her well enough to
read the meaning of that quiet tone, with a subtle cadence in it, just
at the end of a phrase, that went to his heart. To him it testified to
an unspeakable regret.

It was difficult to define the change in her manner, but it conveyed to
the visitor the impression that she had lost belief in herself, or in
some one; that she had received a severe shock, and knew no longer what
to trust or how to steer. She seemed to speak across some vast spiritual
distance, an effect not prod