"Forgive me," said Lord Hurdly, with great courtesy. "Forget that I have roughly touched a spot so sore, and tell me this, if you will: are you married or unmarried?" "I am unmarried," said Bettina, beginning to tremble as she found the important moment upon her; "but I am about to be married. I have made this visit to London beforehand only to see you. The man I am going to marry is your cousin and heir, Horace Spotswood." Lord Hurdly's guarded face betrayed a certain agitation, but the signs of this were quickly controlled. He looked straight into her eyes for a few seconds without speaking. Then he crossed the room and touched an electric button, saying, as he did so: "I will get rid of an engagement that I had, so that I may be quite at leisure to talk with you." Neither spoke again until the servant had come, taken his instructions, and gone away, closing the door behind him. There was a certain determination in Lord Hurdly's manner and expression which did not escape Bettina. She was sure that her revelation of her identity had prompted some decisive course of action in his mind, but what it was she could not guess from that inscrutable face. "I am now quite free for the morning," her companion said. "Naturally there is much for us to say to each other. Will you not lay aside your bonnet and wrap? The day is warm, and that heavy mourning must distress you." Certainly his manner was kind. Bettina began to like him and to hope for success in her object in coming here. Quickly unbuttoning her black gloves, she unsheathed her lovely hands, which were bare of rings. Then with a few deft motions she removed her outer wrap and her bonnet with its long, thick veil. In so doing she revealed the fact that she had an exquisite head, with delicious masses of brown hair which looked almost reddish in its contrast to the dense black of her gown, the smooth severity of which accentuated every lovely curve of her figure, as it would have done every defect, had there been defect. This gown was fitted to her so absolutely that one had the satisfying sense that one looked at the woman instead of at her clothes. There were fine old portraits on the wall, of noble ladies who had once done the honors of this great establishment, but the fairest of them paled before the glowing loveliness of this girl. For she looked a girl, despite her sombre garments, and there was a certain timidity in her manner which strengthened this impression. Lord Hurdly offered her a seat, and then took another, facing her. "In engaging yourself to marry Horace Spotswood," he began, deliberately, "you have made the supreme, if not the irreparable, mistake of your life." Bettina's white skin showed the sudden ebb of the blood in her veins as he said these words. "Why?" she asked, concisely.