hen were not misrepresented in her confession to the rector,
and she had been absolutely silent as to her subsequent and present
feeling toward him. All that she said, the whole burden of her song,
was that she had so wronged him in that past time; never once had she
hinted at the possibility of any renewal of relations between them.

In spite of all this, the rector knew Bettina well, and he recognized
the fact that she was under the dominion of some larger and deeper
feeling than he had ever known her to have except her affection for
her mother. And had even that, he asked himself, so permeated her
whole being--mind, soul, and character--as this feeling in which he
now saw her so absorbed? He answered that it had not. It was,
therefore, taking a certain responsibility upon himself to show this
letter. But he was acting in the interest of truth and justice, and
he could not find it in his heart to regret what he had done.

Temperate, judicious, deliberate as the rector was in all his mental
processes, he could not imagine that any result could come from the
course which he had taken, except some very remote one. Bettina had
shown plainly her determination never to divulge to Horace the
contents of Mr. Cortlin's letter; he was under promise to keep the
secret also, so there was no ground upon which the intercourse
between them could be renewed. Besides this, Bettina was but recently
become a widow. The proprieties of the situation demanded absolute
seclusion for a year at least, and, in Mr. Spotswood's consciousness,
propriety was supreme. He never took count of the fact that
conventions could be disregarded by any right-minded person, and to
this extent at least he conceived Bettina to be right-minded.

CHAPTER XVII

The reading of that letter from Horace to the rector was a crisis in
Bettina's life. Its effect upon her was singular. When she eagerly
took in those pages filled with such anguish as possesses the heart
but once or twice in a lifetime, the consciousness that it was she,
Bettina, who had created such a love in the heart of the man that
Horace Spotswood was to her now, so exhilarated her that she was
capable of but one feeling--exultation. To have had this love, though
now she had it not, seemed to glorify her life. To have caused him
such sorrow--how greatly he had cared! In spite of all there was
rapture in it!

That mood was followed by one of intense regret--an excoriating
self-accusation