he word for this case. You may determine as you choose, but what
will it avail if I determine not to touch a penny belonging to either
the late or the present Lord Hurdly? You are very careful of the
dignity of your position. I must also look to mine, which you seem
strangely to have forgotten."

His expression showed her plainly that these words of hers had cut
deep into his consciousness. A swift compunction seized her heart,
but her pride was still in the supremacy, and enabled her to stifle
the feeling.

"I have not forgotten it," he said. "It is because I have been
mindful of the dignity of your position that I have urged this thing
upon you. The conditions of the will need not be generally known if
you will accept the right and proper income, which I wish, above all
things, to see you have. Can you not believe me sincere in my desire
to remove the indignity put upon you by a member of my family, and
the bearer before me of a name and position of which it has now
become my duty to maintain the credit? And can you not believe me
just enough and kind enough to wish to see this done for your sake as
well as for my own?"

Bettina's face continued proudly hard. If the gentleness of her
companion's expression, the kindness of his manner, the delicate
respect of his tones, made any appeal to her woman's heart, the
all-potency of her pride enabled her to conceal it. But the struggle
between the two feelings at war within her made a desperate demand
upon her strength. She felt that she would do well to put an end to
this interview as soon as practicable. With this purpose she said,
abruptly:

"I am willing to do full justice to your motives, but they cannot
affect my action. My mind is quite made up. I shall return to America
at once, and there the credit of Lord Hurdly's name will not suffer
any hurt, since I shall be practically out of the world. Certainly I
shall be forever removed from the world in which his life will be
spent. Do not think that I shall regret it. I shall not. My
experience of your world has shown me that the mere possession of
money, rank, position, influence, is powerless to bring happiness. I
thought once that if I should come to have these I could get pleasure
and satisfaction from them, but I was wrong. My nature inherently
loved importance and display, but I mistook the unessential for the
essential. If I had had all these external things, together with the
satisfaction of the inward needs,