ed that which
was most simple and plain. But to Hilda it was abrupt, and although
she was not altogether unprepared, yet it came like a thunder-clap,
and for a moment she sank down into the depths of despair.

Then she rallied. In spite of the consciousness of the truth of her
position--a truth which was unknown to Lord Chetwynde--she felt as
though she were the victim of ingratitude and injustice. What she had
done entitled her, she thought, to something more than a cold
dismissal. All her pride and her dignity arose in arms at this
slight. She regarded him calmly for a few moments as she listened to
his words. Then all the pent-up feelings of her heart burst forth
irrepressibly.

"Lord Chetwynde," said she, in a low and mournful voice, "I once
would not have said to you what I am now going to say. I had not the
right to say it, nor if I had would my pride have permitted me. But
now I feel that I have earned the right to say it; and as to my
pride, that has long since been buried in the dust. Besides, your
words render it necessary that I should speak, and no longer keep
silence. We had one interview, in which you did all the speaking and
I kept silence. We had another interview in which I made a vain
attempt at conciliation. I now wish to speak merely to explain things
as they have been, and as they are, so that hereafter you may feel
this, at least, that I have been frank and open at last.

"Lord Chetwynde, you remember that old bond that bound me to you.
What was I? A girl of ten--a child. Afterward I was held to that bond
under circumstances that have been impressed upon my memory
indelibly. My father in the last hour of his life, when delirium was
upon him, forced me to carry it out. You were older than I. You were
a grown man. I was a child of fourteen. Could you not have found some
way of saving me? I was a child. You were a man. Could you not have
obtained some one who was not a priest, so that such a mockery of a
marriage might have remained a mockery, and not have become a
reality? It would have been easy to do that. My father's last hours
would then have been lightened all the same, while you and I would
not have been joined in that irrevocable vow. I tell you, Lord
Chetwynde, that, in the years that followed, this thought was often
in my mind, and thus it was that I learned to lay upon you the chief
blame of the events that resulted.

"You have spoken to me, Lord Chetwynde, in very plain language about