y youth--the love of my life--on a man
whom I had endowed with every noble quality of which I could conceive
to find that he was only of the same common clay as others whose
advances I had ignored because I had set him so high?

In my anger I put him beneath all others, because, as a silly girl,
I had been blinded by my own delusions, and, as a foolish woman,
I had gone on dreaming the dreams of a girl. The thought, too, of
Lucy having been so close to me all these months, and of how nearly
I had confided in her, stung me like a blow.

And this was the end! I had wasted every affection of my nature in
blind worship of the idol which now lay shattered at the first
blow. I had wandered with reckless feet far from the path in which
all prudent women tread, to find myself in a wilderness alone and
without a refuge. My secret was in the keeping of Sarennes, who
would sooner or later betray it, when he thought by so doing he
could bend me to his will.

Why had I never looked at this with the same eyes, the same brain
I had used in other matters? In other matters I had conducted myself
as a reasonable woman should; but in this, the weightiest affair
in my life, had I wandered, without sane thought, without any guide
save impulses so unreasoning that they could scarce have even swayed
my judgment in other things.

Then, my anger having passed, I saw the whole incredible folly of
my life, and alone and in bitter misery I trod the Valley of
Humiliation, until with wearied soul and softened heart I knelt
and prayed for deliverance.

When I returned to the house the effort to meet and talk with others
did much to restore me to myself. Angelique, I could see, was
greatly excited, and it was a pain to think that what to me was a
bitter degradation and the wreck of all my hopes could possibly be
looked upon by a young and innocent girl as a piece of curious
surmisal, perhaps to be laughed over and speculated upon, without
a thought of the misery it entailed.

In my room that night I reasoned out my whole position calmly from
the beginning, and with a chilling fear I saw myself confronted by
a new humiliation.

Had I not in my infatuation misconstrued every little kindness on
the part of Hugh, every expression of sympathy and of ordinary
courtesy, nay, every smile, and look, and word, into a language
which existed only in my credulous imagination? Had he ever spoken
a single word of love to me? Had he not even refused to answ