"Love is self-sacrifice." Such had been the verdict of the woman who had given all, and who had received nothing. It was a hard philosophy, acquired after years of dreariness, and the child had listened and absorbed and believed. She had heard nothing of love's fulfilment, of the raptures of mutual tenderness. Hence she had been content with Anthony's somewhat somber wooing, until that moment when she had drifted with Justin through infinite space, and had learned the things which might be.
The thought of herself as mistress of Anthony's big house by the sea weighed heavily upon her. In those great rooms she would move softly for the rest of her days. Anthony would work and read and ponder, and when he was at Harbor Light she would sit lonely through the gray winter evenings, and the sad summer twilights. But with Justin—oh, the limitless possibilities!
With him each day would bring its wealth of vivid experience—there would be always the glory of his strength, the uplift of his radiant youth!
She put the vision from her. So had her father striven for joy, and he had missed all the great meanings of life—and she would not be like her father.
The wind was rising, and wailed fretfully above the waters. The stars were blotted out.
Bettina shivered. What a dark world it was!
She rose and went down-stairs. Again she sat down to her desk. But this time she wrote rapidly, and the letter that she wrote was not to Anthony!
When she had sealed and stamped it, she crept down the shadowy stairway, thence to the narrow street.
The mail box was at the corner, and she sped toward it; as she came back on flying feet, a whisper reached her from the darkness of the garden—a whisper which made her heart stand still.
"Betty——"