“All my life I have been preparing to make a stand at some great crisis,” she said to herself; “and now that it has come, I am giving way already. I must find something to do. Of what use is it to train myself to be a martyr, if I cannot bear a week’s loneliness?” She summoned all her resolution to enable her to meet this unexpected demand, and reviewed the state of affairs. With mingled shame and disgust she realised that she had been cherishing the vague thought that it was scarcely worth while to take up any settled work at present, and that this was owing to a half-hope that something might still happen to set things right and render her sacrifice unnecessary. It was a bitter disappointment to her to find that she could be so false to her dearest principles, and her first impulse was to place her determination beyond the possibility of change. As a step in the desired direction, she tore up the letter she had been about to despatch to her godmother, Princess Soudaroff, and wrote another. She knew that of late her letters had been somewhat short and superficial, telling all the trivial pieces of news she could find, but never touching on the all-important subject which had engrossed the minds of her parents, from the moment of their first sight of Caerleon, to that of her parting from him at Bellaviste. It is true that both Caerleon and Cyril had found a casual mention in the earlier letters written from Janoszwar; but as time went on both names, and especially that of the elder brother, had dropped out of sight in a way that would have caused some idea of the truth to enter the mind of most women, but the Princess was not inclined to be suspicious by nature. Nadia’s heart smote her now for her reticence, and she told her story to the Princess, suppressing only two material facts,--the name of her lover--this was due to her anxiety to behave fairly towards Caerleon,--and, as a natural corollary, her reason for refusing him. It must be confessed that she was not altogether sorry to be unable to lay the whole of the facts before her godmother; for although the Princess was very sympathetic in cases of conscience, she had a habit of looking at things differently from any one else, and Nadia had a lurking suspicion that in this case she might tell her that she had acted hastily, and ought to have asked advice. And this was merely what her own conscience hinted to her many times a-day. Before giving Caerleon her final answer she had been upheld by the expectation that the consciousness of having done right would bring her peace, if not happiness; but she now knew little indeed of either feeling. This made her begin to doubt whether she might not have been led astray by her own conviction of the goodness of the deed; and the doubt returned again and again to make her wretched.