nd now her heart
combated the influence of her head, which decreed that only a fool
would reject the great good fortune now held out to her.

In point of fact, Bettina had been influenced more by ambition than
by love in engaging herself to Horace, and the gratification of a far
more splendid ambition was offered to her in making this other
marriage. In it, also, love would play but little part, and this she
felt to be decidedly a gain. Yet she was not so far lost to the
sentiments of kindness and loyalty, that she had learned from the
teaching and example of her mother, as not to hesitate before
wounding and humiliating the man who, as she still believed, loved
her devotedly. Could it have been proved that she was mistaken in so
believing, Lord Hurdly's case would have been already won.

CHAPTER III

In the end Lord Hurdly prevailed, and that end was swifter in coming
than Bettina would have believed to be possible. She had allowed
herself a week to wait in London, and for the first day or two of
that week she lived in dread lest Lord Hurdly should come to her and
renew the arguments which she was quite determined to combat. As the
days passed and he did not come, she began to fear that the
opportunity of final decision on the momentous question of her choice
between these two men would not again be offered her. Her better
nature still held her to her pledge to Horace, but already she had
come to feel that, but for his disappointment at losing her, she
would have accepted Lord Hurdly's proposal, as it offered a full and
immediate fulfilment of her dreams of ambition, and the other
postponed these indefinitely, while it promised comparatively little
in any other direction.

Toward the end of the week Lord Hurdly called, and, without any
reference to his own hopes and intentions, spoke, with what seemed to
be a considerable hesitation and regret, of his young cousin's
character and mode of life, which he declared were known, to every
one except Bettina, to be exceedingly capricious--even light. He
dwelt upon the fact, well known to Bettina, of his earnest desire
that his cousin and heir should marry, and gave as a reason for this
desire, what he declared to be the accepted fact, that Horace was
inclined to a dissipated manner of living, which he hoped marriage
might correct.

Poor Bettina! She had believed the young man, to whom she had pledged
herself, to be the very opposite of all this. Yet how absolute