For this point, at least, Bettina had positively reached. Why, therefore, should she adhere to her engagement in the face of the knowledge that such an adherence would be to his disadvantage, no less than to hers? These arguments would have quite prevailed with her but for one thing. This was the conviction, not yet changed, though somewhat shaken by Lord Hurdly's account of him, that Horace really loved her and would suffer in losing her. Deprived of the restraint of her mother's influence, Bettina had progressed with rapidity in her way toward worldliness and selfish ambition, but she had a heart. Her love for her mother had given abundant proof of that, if there were nothing else; and now her heart combated the influence of her head, which decreed that only a fool would reject the great good fortune now held out to her. In point of fact, Bettina had been influenced more by ambition than by love in engaging herself to Horace, and the gratification of a far more splendid ambition was offered to her in making this other marriage. In it, also, love would play but little part, and this she felt to be decidedly a gain. Yet she was not so far lost to the sentiments of kindness and loyalty, that she had learned from the teaching and example of her mother, as not to hesitate before wounding and humiliating the man who, as she still believed, loved her devotedly. Could it have been proved that she was mistaken in so believing, Lord Hurdly's case would have been already won. CHAPTER III In the end Lord Hurdly prevailed, and that end was swifter in coming than Bettina would have believed to be possible. She had allowed herself a week to wait in London, and for the first day or two of that week she lived in dread lest Lord Hurdly should come to her and renew the arguments which she was quite determined to combat. As the days passed and he did not come, she began to fear that the opportunity of final decision on the momentous question of her choice between these two men would not again be offered her. Her better nature still held her to her pledge to Horace, but already she had come to feel that, but for his disappointment at losing her, she would have accepted Lord Hurdly's proposal, as it offered a full and immediate fulfilment of her dreams of ambition, and the other postponed these indefinitely, while it promised comparatively little in any other direction.