The rector's heart was deeply touched. This show of humility in the high-spirited, self-willed girl that he remembered took him by surprise. "It could never be my impulse to blame you, my dear child, and the less so when I see how bitterly you are blaming yourself for this unknown thing. If you will tell me about it, I will do all that may be in my power to help you. At all events, you may count upon my loving sympathy." "Ah, if I only could! It would be much to me now. But you are ignorant of what you are promising. In a certain way it concerns yourself, or at least a member of your family." She saw a slightly hardened look come into his face, but it quickly gave way to a gentler one. "No matter what it is, if you have suffered and repented, the best sympathy of my heart is yours." "You will regard it as a confidence--a sacred confidence?" said Bettina. "I could only tell you with that understanding. I know that a clergyman is accustomed to keeping the secrets of his people, and I could not say a word unless I were sure that this thing would rest forever between you and me." [Illustration: "'TRULY, MY CHILD, IT IS A WRETCHED STORY'"] Wishing to soothe her in every possible way, the rector gave her his promise to keep sacred what she might tell him; and thus reassured, poor Bettina opened her heart. The relief of it was so exquisite and the experience was so rare, that she told it all with the abandonment of a child at its mother's knee, and with a degree of self-accusation that might well have disarmed condemnation, as indeed it did. Up to the time of her meeting with Horace in England, she kept back nothing, describing with absolute truth her feelings as well as her conduct. When she had reached that point, however, a sense of instinctive reserve came to her, and a few brief sentences described what had happened since. At the end of her recital she paused, looking eagerly into the rector's face, as if she both hoped and feared what he might say.