To Bettina's sensitively alert mind it was plain that it would not do in the least to drag her suddenly out of her prison, or cloister, whichsoever it might be.

To do so would be like forcing a creature accustomed only to darkness, to stare at the blazing sun.

To have burst upon her with the old impetuous, candid fondness would have been to frighten and shock her as if with something bordering on indecency.

She could not have stood it; perhaps such fondness was so remote from her in these days that she had even ceased to be able to understand it.
"Where are your little girls ?" Bettina asked, remembering that there had been notice given of the advent of two girl babies.
"They died," Lady Anstruthers answered unemotionally.

"They both died before they were a year old.