And then, seating herself on the old-fashioned window-seat, with clasped hands lying in her lap, and steadfast eyes brooding on the ground; in an attitude of deepest thought, she retraced the history of Bothwell's courtship. She asked herself if she had verily been, as Lady Valeria had insinuated, herself half the wooer. She remembered how, in the beginning of their acquaintance, she had admired Dora Wyllard's cousin--how his riding, his singing, his conversation had alike seemed perfection. How she had contrasted him, to his wondrous advantage, with the country squires around and about. It was just possible that in her girlish inexperience she had betrayed her admiration, had flattered Bothwell into the idea that he liked her. And then, when the hour of trouble came, it was true that she had made no effort to hide her feelings; she had given Bothwell her sympathy almost unasked; she had, perhaps, lured him into declaring himself as her lover, when the feeling which inspired him was but the impulse of the moment, a transient emotion, born of gratitude. She could understand how, in his self-contempt, his wounded honour, he had believed that his love for Valeria was a thing of the past, and had been glad to release himself from the ignoble bondage. But now that Valeria was free, his first love, fondly attached to him, valuing her fortune and position only as a means for his advancement, who could doubt that the old love would revive in his breast with all the old fervour; that his heart would go back to his first beloved, as a bird returns to its nest? And was his whole life to be sacrificed because of this one mistaken impulse? No, the wrong was not yet irreparable. The marriage planned for next Tuesday need never take place. Hilda began deliberately to scheme out the manner in which she should set her lover free. If the thing was to be done, it must be done bravely and thoroughly--not by halves. There must be no half-hearted action, no wavering, no pretence of surrender offered in the hope that Bothwell would refuse to accept his liberty. No; she must make the sacrifice as full and as effectual as that of Jephthah's daughter. She gave her life to save her father's honour. She (Hilda) could give her happiness, her fair future, the sweet ideal she had dreamed of, the life which to every good woman seems of all lives most perfect, an existence spent in tranquil seclusion with the husband of her choice.