dertone. "You know he came down to Bath; that was
our last meeting; and I felt that something was wrong. Ah, so hard to
know oneself! I wanted to talk to you about it; but then I said to
myself--what can Bertha do but tell me to know my own mind? And that's
just what I couldn't come to,--to understand my own feelings. I was
changing, I knew that. I dreaded to look into my own thoughts, from day
to day. Above all, I dreaded to sit down and write to him. Oh, the
hateful falsity of those letters--Yet what could I do, what could I do?
I had no right to give such a blow, unless I felt that anything else
was utterly, utterly impossible."

"And at last you did feel it?"

"In Switzerland--yes. It came like a flash of lightning. I was walking
up that splendid valley--you remember my description--up toward the
glacier. That morning I had had a letter, naming the very day for our
marriage, and speaking of the house--your house at Putney--he meant to
take. I had said to myself--'It must be; I can do nothing. I haven't
the courage.' Then, as I was walking, a sort of horror fell upon me,
and made me tremble; and when it passed I saw that, so far from not
having the courage to break, I should never dare to go through with it.
And I went back to the hotel, and sat down and wrote, without another
moment's thought or hesitation."

"What else could you have done?" said Bertha, with a sigh of relief.
"When it comes to horror and tremblings!"

There was a light in her eye which seemed the precursor of a smile; but
her voice was not unsympathetic, and Rosamund knew that one of Bertha
Cross smiles was worth more in the way of friendship than another's
tragic emotion.

"Have patience with me," she continued, "whilst I try to explain it
all. The worst of my position is, that so many people will know what I
have done, and so few of them, hardly any one, will understand why. One
can't talk to people about such things. Even Winnie and father--I'm
sure they don't really understand--though I'm afraid they're both
rather glad. What a wretched thing it is to be misjudged. I feel sure,
Bertha, that it's just this kind of thing that makes a woman sit down
and write a novel--where she can speak freely in disguise, and do
herself justice. Don't you think so?"

"I shouldn't wonder," replied the listener, thoughtfully. "But does it
really matter? If you know you're only doing what you must do?"

"But that's only how it seems to me. Another, in my pl