It gave Piers a distinction in her mind which more than earned her pardon.
But--poor fellow!--he must surely know that she could never respond to his romantic feeling.

It was pure romance, and charming--if only it did not mean sorrow to him and idle hopes.

Such a love as this, distant, respectful, she would have liked to keep for years, for a lifetime.

If only she could be sure that romance was as dreamily delightful to her poet as to her! The worst of it was that Piers Otway had suffered a sad wrong, an injustice which, when she heard of it, made her nobly angry.

A month after the death of the old philosopher at Hawes, Mrs.Hannaford startled her with a strange story.