And what had she gained by it?  What single advantage had she reaped out of her sacrificed life?  Was Maurice any nearer to her—­was he not hopelessly divided from her—­helplessly out of her reach?  She knew nothing of him, no word concerning him reached her ears:  a great blank was before her.  When she went over the past again and again in her mind, she could not well see what good thing could ever come to her from what she had done.  There were moments indeed when the whole story of her broken engagement seemed to her like the wild delusion of madness.  She had had no intention of acknowledging her love to Maurice when she had gone up to the station to see him off; she had only meant to see him once more, to hold his hand for one instant, to speak a few kind words; to wish him God speed.  She asked herself now what had possessed her that she had not been able to preserve the self-control of affectionate friendship when the unfortunate accident of her being taken on in the train with him had left her entirely alone in his society.  She did not go the length of regretting what she had done for his sake; but she did acknowledge to herself that she had been led away by the magnetism of his presence and by the strange and unexpected chance which had thus left her alone with him into saying and doing things which in a calmer moment she would not have been betrayed into.

For a few kisses—­for the joy of telling him that his love was returned—­for a short moment of delirious and transient happiness, and alas! for nothing more—­she had thrown away her life!

She had behaved hardly and cruelly to a good man who loved her, and whose heart she had half broken, and she had lost a great many very excellent and satisfactory things.

And Maurice was no nearer to her.  With his own lips he had told her that he could not marry her.  There had been mention, indeed, of that problematical term of five years, in which he had bound himself to await Mrs. Romer’s pleasure—­but, even had Mrs. Romer not existed, it was plain that Maurice was the last man in the world to take advantage of a woman’s weakness in order to supplant his brother in her heart.

Instinctively Vera felt that Maurice must be no less miserable than herself; that his regret for what had happened between them must be as great as her own, and his remorse far greater.  They were, indeed, neither of them blameless in the matter; for, if it was Maurice who had first spoken of his love to his brother’s promised wife, it was Vera who had made that irrevocable step along the road of her destiny from which no going back was now possible.