your past kindness and your attachment to him--"

She broke off, her voice shaken.

"On the same ground I counted on him," said Lord Hurdly. "He was in
no position to marry against my will, and in engaging to do so he
defied me. Let him take the consequences."

"Then you are determined not to relent?" Bettina faltered. "You will
not forgive him for the offence of proposing to make me his wife?"

"I did not say that," returned Lord Hurdly, with a subtle change of
tone. "I certainly should not forgive him for marrying you, but for
proposing to do so I am ready enough to forgive him, provided he
comes to his senses at that point and goes no further. In that event
I am ready not only to continue the handsome income that I have
allowed him, but to give him outright the principal of it."

Bettina had never pretended that she was deeply in love with Horace
Spotswood. Indeed, she had quite decided within herself that she was
incapable of such a state of feeling, and it was her belief that the
fervor and intensity of love which she had given to her mother had
taken the place of what some women give to their husbands. Still, she
looked upon her prospective marriage to him as one of the fixed facts
of the universe, and Lord Hurdly's words bewildered her.

Keener than this surprise, however, was her sense of humiliation at
the implacable offence which Lord Hurdly had taken at his heir's
proposed marriage with herself. That he had wished Horace to marry
she knew; it was therefore the woman whom he had chosen that Lord
Hurdly resented.

She rose to her feet, feeling herself giddy, and knowing that she was
white with agitation. Her one idea was to get away--to escape the
scrutiny of the intense gaze which was fixed upon her.

"I must go. I beg your pardon for coming," she said, with a proud
coldness, reaching for her wrap.

"You must not go. I owe you endless thanks for coming, and I will
show you that you have to congratulate yourself also on this
interview. If you went now, you would defeat all the good that may
come of it. Sit down, I beg of you, and hear me out."

His manner was not only urgent, it was also kind, and nothing could
have been more respectful than his every look and tone.

Bettina sat down again and waited.

"What is it that has shocked you?" he said. "Is it because of your
great love for Horace--or is it his for you which you are thinking of
most?"

"I do not see that I am bound to answer you that qu