en right when she had
accused her of defrauding not only herself, but him, of the best part
of what love should mean--confidence and trust--and was this her
punishment? And little by little, as she thought and puzzled over it
all, the scales fell from her eyes and she knew the truth. She knew
that she had "drugged her brain against realities, and lived in
dreams,"--dreams which had been, as most dreams are, strange compounds
of self-deception and hallucination, distorted, imaginary and futile.

And yet, while her hope and joy vanished like a vapour before the
searching heat of truth, one thing remained firm--her love for Francis.
Whatever mistakes she had made, whatever fancies she had taken for
fact, this was actual, pure and irrefutable. It seemed to her suddenly
that this was the only saving clause in the long list of errors, and
she saw the difference it would have made if Francis had known the
truth. No possible cloud could have come between them then, and all
the rosy dreams in which she had indulged might have proved waking joys.

And even now she could not see how she could have acted
differently--certainly not at the outset--it was impossible then to
undeceive Francis; but later, supposing that when she first became
aware of her love for him--supposing she had told him the truth then,
making clear her affection at the same time, could he not have borne
it? Had that been in reality her one hour of choice to which regret
now turned with longing? At the time she had been so engrossed in her
own rapture that she had passed it unheeding. And now, was it possible
to tell him? And if she did so, how could she explain, how vindicate
her own actions? She had taken his protestations, his tenderness under
a false pretence. How could she tell him now, when his memory was
groping back slowly and painfully, and he had already so much to bear
in the fuller knowledge of his limitations--when he had no one but her?

She could not do it. The only thing she could do was to go on, to
carry on what she had undertaken; and after all, if he did not love her
he was absolutely dependent on her. She must school herself to listen
to this talk of old days. It could be only for a time, for in the
future there would be so many new interests for him that he would cease
to think of the past. She would so fill his life that if she were only
patient, surely she might hope for the day when she could say that he
was hers in every