Then reflection forced upon him the possible answer that he might have received. She might have coldly resented the impertinence of such a speech, or she might have given him to understand that what appeared true was really true--namely, that his cousin's splendid offer was preferred to his poor one. Yes, he was no doubt a fool to hold on to his belief in Bettina in face of the obvious facts. The thing he had to do was to overcome it, and go on with his life and career quite apart from her. This would have been the easier to do but for one thing. He had satisfied himself that Bettina had been unhappy in her marriage to Lord Hurdly. It was evident that the worldly importance which it had given her had not sufficed her needs. He knew--her own mother had avowed it to him--that Bettina was ambitious; but he knew, what the same source had also revealed, that she had a good and loving heart. What he felt was that she had been taught by bitter experience the emptiness of mere worldly gratification, and that poor heart of hers was breaking in its loneliness. But then came reason again, and pointed to the hard facts before his eyes. What a fool he was to go on constructing a romantic theory out of his own consciousness when Bettina, by definite choice and decision, had proved herself to be, what he must compel himself to consider her, both heartless and false! Fortified by the bitter support of this conception of her, he left the library, and, for the first time since his return, made the complete tour of the house. Through most of the apartments he passed swiftly enough, but in two of them he paused. The first was the long picture-gallery, where he looked critically at his own boyish portrait, wondering if Bettina had ever looked at it, and what feelings it might have aroused, and then passed on and stood before that most beautiful of all the Lady Hurdlys who had been or who might ever be. But this was too demoralizing to that mood of hardness that he had but recently assumed, and so he turned his back on the gracious image and walked away.