Long ago she had reproached herself with her half-coquetry to Piers Otway, an error of exuberant spirits when she was still very young.

There was no obscuring the fact; deliberately she had set herself to draw him away from his studies; she had made it a point of pride to show herself irresistible.

Where others failed in their attack upon his austere seclusion, _she_ would succeed, and easily.

She had succeeded only too well, and it never quite ceased to trouble her conscience.

Now, learning that even after four years her victim still remained loyal, she thought of him with much gentleness, and would have scorned herself had she felt scorn of his devotion.
No other of her wooers had ever written her a poem; no other was capable of it.