her voice
was resolute as she said:

"I thank you, Lord Hurdly, for the service which you have rendered
me. This letter has made my future course quite clear. I shall write
to your cousin to-day that everything is at an end between us. And
now will you be good enough to leave me? I wish to make my
arrangements to return to America at once."

Even as she said the words, the bitter barrenness of this
prospect--the old dull life, without the dear presence which had been
its one and sufficient palliation--rose before her mind and appalled
her. Perhaps Lord Hurdly saw in her face some change of expression
which he construed as favorable to himself, for he hastened to say:

"Will you not, before taking so rash a step, consider the proposal
which I have made to you? I can offer you the substance of which the
other was only the shadow, and I can pledge to you the stable and
unalterable devotion of a man who has lived long enough to know his
own mind, and who declares to you that you are the only woman whom he
has ever desired to put in the position of his wife."

It was impossible not to feel some consciousness of satisfaction at a
tribute which her own knowledge of facts convinced her to be sincere,
but Bettina's heart and mind were still too preoccupied to meet him
in the way he wished. She repeated her request that he would leave
her, and so earnest and distressed was her manner that he complied,
leaving behind him an impression of the deepest solicitude for her,
and the most earnest desire on his part to atone for the wrong which
his kinsman had done her.

Bettina threw herself upon the lounge and abandoned herself to a fit
of weeping--so overwhelming, so despairing, so heart-breaking that
she could scarcely believe that she, who had thought that all her
power of deep suffering had been exhausted, could still find it in
her to care so much for any other grief.

The worst of it was that, now it was quite evident that she was
forever divided from Horace, the charm of his manner and appearance,
the tenderness of his love-making, came back to her with a power
which they had never exercised upon her in reality. Never, surely,
had a man existed who was, to appearance at least, more frank,
sincere, ardent, and deeply in love than he had seemed to be with
her. It made his perfidy appear the greater. Nothing but the sight of
that letter could have made her believe it; but that, taken in
connection with the rareness and cooln