So they parted, the countess dancing up the meadow steep again, with her letters in her hand, as if earth held no further care for her, and Nell walking slowly down the incline that led to the road, her head bent upon her breast, and her eyes cast downwards. One going up to the greatest joy that life holds for any woman, the love and faith of an honest man; the other going downwards to all that was abhorrent and loathly. The success of the one dependent on the failure of the other; the happiness of the one due to the despair of the other; the triumph of the one built on the sacrifice of the other. Nora, who had been so self-willed and rebellious through life, saved from the effects of her escapades by Nell, who had borne her lot so patiently, and taken all her disappointments as righteous retribution. It appears unequal; but it is the way things are worked in this world. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. In the next world there will be dust and ashes for some of the great and fortunate ones of this earth, and crowns for the lowly and the despised. And Nell Llewellyn’s crown will sparkle with jewels as heaven is studded with its stars. CHAPTER IX. As the Countess of Ilfracombe returned to the Hall, with her packet of letters in her hand, her heart was very glad, but at the same time it was filled with soberer thoughts than it had indulged in for some time past. What was after all the great difference between her and Nell Llewellyn? She had not fallen, it was true--she had not openly disgraced herself--but what had her flirtation with Jack Portland been if not a lowering of her womanly dignity; a soiling of her purity; a smirching of the delicate bloom and whiteness that should have protected her maidenly life as with a veil? Nora felt terribly ashamed of herself as she remembered it. Her great fear had passed away, thanks to Nell’s interest and intrepidity, and her mind had time to think of other things. This poor despised girl had saved her from all sorts of horrors; preserved her husband’s faith in her; his love for her; had placed in her hand, as it were, the whole happiness of her life. But she herself--if she destroyed these letters, as she fully intended to do, how would she be any better than before--any more deserving of Ilfracombe’s affection and confidence? She would be safe, it is true, but safety did not constitute worthiness. And Nora had begun to long to _deserve_ her husband’s love--to be able to accept it with an unburdened conscience--feeling that there was nothing between them, not even a shadow cast from the past. Could she, she asked herself, as she wended homewards, ever summon up the courage to tell him everything, to make him the arbiter of her destiny, to constitute him her judge and await the sentence he chose to pronounce upon her? It would be very awful she thought, terrible beyond description; she did not think