l to be
borne with dignity, it was still a trial to her to think of losing
forever the splendid place which she had for a short year or two held
in the great world.

CHAPTER XII

Bettina was writing in the library one morning when her attention was
arrested by the sound of an approaching footstep. The next moment a
servant announced,

"Lord Hurdly."

At this name she started violently. So long accustomed to associate
it with one person, she forgot for the instant that another bore it
now. As she rose, startled and expectant, through the portiere held
back by the servant there entered a man whose sharp dissimilarity to
the image in her mind made her catch her breath.

The next second she knew that it was Horace, and realized that she
was trembling from head to foot. The breadth of the room was between
them, for he had paused just within the door, nodding to the servant
to withdraw.

He stood there an instant in silence.

Perhaps she was no more startled by the surprise which the sight of
him occasioned than was he at the sight of her; but the quality of
the surprise was different. It was her beauty, her so far more than
recollected beauty, which had arrested him and held him spellbound.
He had left her sick with grief about her mother, the color faded
from her cheeks, her eyes dulled with weeping. There had been,
moreover, in her expression an apathy which his ardent words had
failed to do away with. Besides these inherent things, the extrinsic
points were glaringly a contrast to the present ones. Then her
somewhat too slight figure had been dressed in gowns of village make
and fit, and her lovely hair had been carelessly wound up, without
regard to fashion or effect.

Now he saw confronting him a woman whom nature had endowed with a
rare beauty, and for whom art had also done its best in the matter of
outward adornment. True, she was clad in plain unrelieved black from
head to foot, but no other costume could have so exquisitely
displayed her glowing loveliness of coloring or the pure correctness
of her outlines.

During the few seconds in which they stood looking at each other she
had perceived also a great change in him. It was of a very different
character, but it made all the more a strong appeal to her, for he
was mysteriously aged. Not only had the Eastern sun turned to bronze
the once ruddy hues of his skin, but he had also lost flesh, and his
hair was getting streaks of gray in it. His figu