made her senses swim.

Lord Hurdly must have seen her agitation, for he hastened to say:

"I have been too hasty. You must forgive me. Do not try to answer me
at present. I see that you are overwrought. Let me beseech you to
rest a little while. I will send for the housekeeper."

"No, no! I must go," she answered, starting to her feet. But she had
overestimated her strength. She sank back in her chair.

He went himself and brought her a glass of wine, talking to her with
a soothing reassurance as she drank it. He reproached himself for
having been too hurried, too rash, but pleaded the earnestness of his
hopes as an excuse. When she had taken the wine she wanted to go, but
he entreated her so humbly not to punish him too deeply for his fault
that when he begged her to let him call the housekeeper to sit with
her until luncheon, which he implored her to take before leaving, she
acquiesced, too fagged out mentally to take any decided position of
her own.

To the housekeeper Lord Hurdly explained that this lady was in deep
trouble--a fact sufficiently attested by her heavy mourning--and
would like to rest awhile before eating some luncheon. Bettina saw
herself regarded with a respectful awe which she had never had a
taste of before. The housekeeper, with the sweetest of voices and
kindest of manners, promised to do all in her power, and Lord Hurdly
withdrew.

[Illustration: "SHE SANK BACK IN HER CHAIR"]

Bettina could not talk. She lay back on the lounge and submitted to
be gently fanned and having salts occasionally held to her nose. But
all her effort was to compose her thoughts--a difficult attempt, as
the image of her mother was the one which insisted on taking the
pre-eminence in her mind. She ordered it down, with a sort of
bitterness. Had her mother been alive, she would have gladly fled
from this puzzle into which her life had tangled itself, and gone
back to America to rest and mother-love. So she told herself, at
least. But then followed the reflection that in her mother's death
the refuge of love's calm and protection was gone from her forever,
and that she must either remain in Europe under one or the other of
the two conditions offered her, or else resign herself to the apathy
of despair.

It was not in her to do this, and the brilliant possibilities which
Lord Hurdly had suggested flashed into her mind, and so excited her
that she suddenly rose to her feet and announced that her slight
indisposit