It was so long since she had talked with any one, and she was so nervous after all her morbid imagining, that she was feeling utterly unlike the old self-reliant, active-minded girl he remembered when the rector entered the room. She also, on her part, was unprepared for the feelings aroused by the sight of him; and when he came in, his grave face and gentle manner so entirely unchanged, in contrast to all the changes she had undergone, Bettina felt a sudden tendency to tears. The thought of her mother also helped to weaken her, and the thought of Horace was a still harder strain on her endurance. She saw a certain constraint in his manner first, as she had perceived it in his note. She felt unaccountably hurt by it, and when he took her hand a little coldly and inquired for her health, a rush of feelings overwhelmed her and she burst into tears. In evident surprise, the visitor tried to soothe her as best he could. Naturally supposing that this grief was in consequence of her recent widowhood, he pressed her hand, and said, gently: "I trust you are not overtaxing yourself by seeing me, my child. If you had preferred not to do so I should not have misunderstood. Your bereavement is so recent that--" But Bettina, trying to silence her sobs, interrupted him. "Oh, forgive me, Mr. Spotswood," she said. "I had not thought I should break down like this. I have been perfectly calm. It is not what you suppose. Oh, I feel so wretched, so lonely, so bewildered! I would give the world if I could speak out my heart to one human being." The rector looked surprised, but visibly softened. "To whom may you speak if not to me, Bettina?" he said. "Surely, whatever trouble is on your heart, you may count upon my sympathy." Bettina did not speak. With her face hid in her pocket-handkerchief she shook her head, as if in dissent from the idea of his sympathy. Feeling rather helpless, he changed his tactics, in an honest endeavor to get at the real cause of her trouble. "Naturally, my child," he said, "the sight of me brings back the thought of your beloved mother. Such a sorrow--" But again she interrupted him, this time by a silent gesture of the hand. Then she said: "It is not that. I've got used to that ache, and although my heart would not be my heart without it, that is a silent and accepted sorrow now. Oh, Mr. Spotswood," she said, impetuously, uncovering her tear-stained face and looking at him with the helplessness of a child, "you are a clergyman; you teach that God is love and compassion and forgiveness; you have a kind heart! I know you have. Perhaps if I could tell you all I have suffered, and how deeply I have repented, you would be sorry for me, and not blame me as much as I deserve to be blamed." She was looking at him tentatively, as if to see how far she could trust to the forbearance of which she felt she had now such need.