ll that his angry sense of injury could say. His
gratitude wounded her to the quick. The bitterest moment she had felt
yet was the moment in which he raised her hand to his lips, and murmured
tenderly, "My own true Grace!" She could only sign to him to leave her,
and hurry back into her own room.

Her first feeling, when she found herself alone again, was
wonder--wonder that it should never have occurred to her, until he had
himself suggested it, that her betrothed husband had the foremost right
to her confession. Her horror at owning to either of them that she had
cheated them out of their love had hitherto placed Horace and Lady Janet
on the same level. She now saw for the first time that there was no
comparison between the claims which they respectively had on her. She
owned an allegiance to Horace to which Lady Janet could assert no right.
Cost her what it might to avow the truth to him with her own lips, the
cruel sacrifice must be made.

Without a moment's hesitation she put away her writing materials. It
amazed her that she should ever have thought of using Julian Gray as
an interpreter between the man to whom she was betrothed and herself.
Julian's sympathy (she thought) must have made a strong impression on
her indeed to blind her to a duty which was beyond all compromise, which
admitted of no dispute!

She had asked for five minutes of delay before she followed Horace. It
was too long a time.

Her one chance of finding courage to crush him with the dreadful
revelation of who she really was, of what she had really done, was
to plunge headlong into the disclosure without giving herself time to
think. The shame of it would overpower her if she gave herself time to
think.

She turned to the door to follow him at once.

Even at that terrible moment the most ineradicable of all a woman's
instincts--the instinct of personal self-respect--brought her to a
pause. She had passed through more than one terrible trial since she had
dressed to go downstairs. Remembering this, she stopped mechanically,
retraced her steps, and looked at herself in the glass.

There was no motive of vanity in what she now did. The action was as
unconscious as if she had buttoned an unfastened glove, or shaken out a
crumpled dress. Not the faintest idea crossed her mind of looking to see
if her beauty might still plead for her, and of trying to set it off at
its best.

A momentary smile, the most weary, the most hopeless, that ever sa