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154 of his scruples, his remorse of conscience: or at least that is what it must needs seem in the sight of the woman he abandoned. She would give him no credit for many a remorseful pang, many a sting of conscience in the past; yes, even in the noontide of passion, when he deemed that for him Fate held not the possibility of another love. In her sight he was a perjurer and a hypocrite. It was hard so to appear to the woman who had worshipped him; hard to know that there was a heart breaking for him yonder in the Italian villa on the hill above the sea.

"Why should I grieve about her?" he asked himself angrily. "I must be a coxcomb to fancy that she is making herself unhappy for my sake. She was angry with me the other day. It was rage, not wounded love, that flashed from those brilliant eyes of hers; the rage of slighted beauty. She is far more concerned for her losses on the turf than at the loss of me. If my Dido mounts the funeral pyre, it will be because she has made a bad book, and not for my sake."

But argue with himself as he might, Bothwell could not forget the agony in the face that had once been his delight, the despair in the voice which had bidden him farewell, the tremulous hand which had snatched the love-token to fling it away in deepest scorn.

Perhaps Bothwell would have more easily forgotten these things if he could have had the comfort of Hilda's society at this period of his life. But Hilda and the twins and Fräulein Meyerstein had all gone off to Dawlish for sea-bathing, and Mrs. Wyllard warned her cousin that he must not attempt to follow them.

"You are on your probation, my poor Bothwell," she said, "and you must be very careful how you act. If you were to go to Dawlish you would only distress Hilda, who has promised not to see you till her brother comes back from Paris."

"I am not going there. I would not distress her for worlds. I am to wait patiently till Heathcote has made up his mind that I am not in the habit of throwing girls over viaducts; and then I may go to my darling and claim her promise. In the mean time I can at least write to her."

And he did write, within a few hours of his final interview with Lady Valeria. His letter was full and straight in its significance.

"My dearest, I am my own man again. I am free, or as free as a man can be who is your most abject slave. I am told that I am not to be allowed to see you till I stand acquitted of the crime which Bodmin has judged me quite capable of committing. I think, little as you know of me, you know enough to be very sure that I am innocent upon that count.