wondered if there had ever been a greater contrast
than these two women who faced each other in the rose-colored room.
Diana, tall and pale, with wisps of hair flying a bit untidily from
beneath her soft hat, yet still beautiful and with the light of high
resolve shining in her steady eyes; Bettina, a little slender slip of a
child, her fair shining braids falling below her knees, her eyes
demanding why men and women should be dedicated to hardness.

"I have been telling Bettina," Mrs. Martens interposed, gently, "that
she will understand some day what such a man means to the world."

For once in her life Diana, tired Diana, lost patience. "She ought to
know what such a man means," she said.

Bettina put her hands before her face and stood very still.

"Oh, dear child," said Diana, remorsefully, "I shouldn't have said such
a thing to you. I didn't mean it."

[Illustration: "I SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID SUCH A THING"]

Bettina's hands dropped straight at her sides. Her blue eyes were misty.
"But it's true," she said. "I'm afraid--I'm afraid I'm not the wife for
Anthony."

Never had there been a truer saying. Yet the two older women stood
abashed before the hurt look on the little white face.

"He has always seemed to me to be the noblest man," Bettina went on. "I
don't think I have ever felt that he was anything but great. You
people, who have always had everything, can't understand what he seemed
to me when he used to come when mother was ill. You can't understand
what it meant when he came to me when I was almost dead with loneliness,
and told me that he wanted to marry me--you can't understand how every
night--I pray--on my knees, that I'll be good enough for him--you can't
understand how grateful I am--and how I try to appreciate his work; but
I'm made that way--to hate pain. I hate to know about it--to see it----"
Again she shuddered.

Diana drew her close. "Oh, you poor little thing," she said, "you poor
little thing."

When the dawn, not many hours later, peeped into the three rooms, it
showed, in one, Sophie asleep beneath the picture of her lost lover. In
another Bettina, asleep, with tears still on her lashes, and with the
flashing rings rising and falling above her heart. In the third room it
showed Diana, awake, after hours of weariness--writing a letter to
Anthony.

When Anthony had read that letter, he left the sanatorium and took a
path which led him to the hills and into the hemlock forest. The walk