“My Dear Lady Hurdly,—Should this letter ever come to your eyes, you will be at that time a widow, as I have left instructions that itshall be delivered only in the event of your surviving your husband. By that time I shall have passed into the unknown world, where, if such things can be, I shall have had with Lord Hurdly an understanding which, by the hard conditions he imposed on me, was impossible in this life. But before leaving the world of human life and action I wish to make sure that at least one wrong which came about through me will have been repaired by me. I am aware that the rupture of your engagement of marriage to Mr. Horace Spotswood was caused chiefly by a letter shown you by Lord Hurdly, and purporting to come from an altogether trustworthy source—a man who was on the spot and who was a personal friend of his. I was that man. I was on the spot because I was sent there by Lord Hurdly for the purpose of writing this letter. For reasons which I need not enter into he had me in his power, and until one of us shall be dead he can force me to do his will. If you ever hold this letter in your hand and read these words we shall both be dead, and by this letter I desire to make reparation for a base and cruel wrong which I have helped to inflict upon an honorable and high-minded gentleman. I allude to the man who, when you read these words, will bearthe name and title of Lord Hurdly. The things I wrote of him are in absolute contradiction to the truth, for a nobler and more loyal heart never beat. You might well discredit any assurance which comes by means of me, and I do not ask to have my words accepted. All I expect to accomplish is that you shall pay enough attention to my statement to investigate the matter for yourself. He is well known, and once your ears are open you will hear enough to prove to you that he has been wronged. That I have wronged him, though reluctantly and by reason of a power I could not resist, is the saddest consciousness of my life.“That I may possibly by this letter do something, however late, to repair this wrong is my chief consolation on leaving the world. I shall carry with me into whatever life I go an ineradicable resentment against the man who was Lord Hurdly, and I leave behind me the most ardent and admiring wishes of my heart for the man who, when you read this, will bear the noble name and title which his predecessor, if the truth about him could be known, has so soiled with treachery in the furtherance of the most indomitable egotism ever known in mortal man.“In conclusion, I ask of your ladyship, as Ido of all the world, such gentle judgment as Christian hearts may find it in them to accord to one whose sins, though many, were of weakness rather than malice, and who did the evil work of a malicious man because he had not strength to brave what that man had it in his power and purpose to do to him in punishment of the resistance of his will.“Your ladyship’s repentant and unhappy servant,”Fitzwilliam Clarke.”
“My Dear Lady Hurdly,—Should this letter ever come to your eyes, you will be at that time a widow, as I have left instructions that itshall be delivered only in the event of your surviving your husband. By that time I shall have passed into the unknown world, where, if such things can be, I shall have had with Lord Hurdly an understanding which, by the hard conditions he imposed on me, was impossible in this life. But before leaving the world of human life and action I wish to make sure that at least one wrong which came about through me will have been repaired by me. I am aware that the rupture of your engagement of marriage to Mr. Horace Spotswood was caused chiefly by a letter shown you by Lord Hurdly, and purporting to come from an altogether trustworthy source—a man who was on the spot and who was a personal friend of his. I was that man. I was on the spot because I was sent there by Lord Hurdly for the purpose of writing this letter. For reasons which I need not enter into he had me in his power, and until one of us shall be dead he can force me to do his will. If you ever hold this letter in your hand and read these words we shall both be dead, and by this letter I desire to make reparation for a base and cruel wrong which I have helped to inflict upon an honorable and high-minded gentleman. I allude to the man who, when you read these words, will bearthe name and title of Lord Hurdly. The things I wrote of him are in absolute contradiction to the truth, for a nobler and more loyal heart never beat. You might well discredit any assurance which comes by means of me, and I do not ask to have my words accepted. All I expect to accomplish is that you shall pay enough attention to my statement to investigate the matter for yourself. He is well known, and once your ears are open you will hear enough to prove to you that he has been wronged. That I have wronged him, though reluctantly and by reason of a power I could not resist, is the saddest consciousness of my life.
“That I may possibly by this letter do something, however late, to repair this wrong is my chief consolation on leaving the world. I shall carry with me into whatever life I go an ineradicable resentment against the man who was Lord Hurdly, and I leave behind me the most ardent and admiring wishes of my heart for the man who, when you read this, will bear the noble name and title which his predecessor, if the truth about him could be known, has so soiled with treachery in the furtherance of the most indomitable egotism ever known in mortal man.
“In conclusion, I ask of your ladyship, as Ido of all the world, such gentle judgment as Christian hearts may find it in them to accord to one whose sins, though many, were of weakness rather than malice, and who did the evil work of a malicious man because he had not strength to brave what that man had it in his power and purpose to do to him in punishment of the resistance of his will.
“Your ladyship’s repentant and unhappy servant,
”Fitzwilliam Clarke.”
Bettina, in her breathless reading of this letter, had forgotten that she was not alone. As she finished it and thrust it back into its envelope she glanced toward the window, and there saw Mr. Cortlin’s figure half hid by the heavy curtains.
“Mr. Cortlin,” she said, in a tone which summoned him quickly to her side, “I wish to ask if you or any other person have any knowledge of the contents of this letter.”
“I can only answer for myself, my lady. I have not. It was delivered to me sealed as you have found it, and no hint of its purpose told me.”
“Had you a personal knowledge and acquaintance with this Mr. Clarke?” she asked next.
“I had, my lady. He was in the confidenceof his late lordship, who intrusted to him many of his private affairs.”
“The man was under some great obligation to Lord Hurdly, was he not?”
“So I have understood, my lady. Formerly he was in the army, and I have heard that there was some dark story about him. I have even heard cheating at cards attributed to him, and it was said that Lord Hurdly’s influence and friendship were all that saved him. The story was hushed up, but he resigned.”
Bettina scarcely followed these last words. A sense of sickening confusion made her head spin round. The revelation of this letter was too much for her. The past possessed her like a blighting spell that she could never hope to shake off, and the knowledge which had come to her through this letter added a thousandfold to its bitterness.
As to the future, she dared not try to see a step before her feet. To go through life with the consciousness of this wrong to Horace unexplained was a thought at which she shuddered. Yet to explain it under existing circumstances was impossible. The agitation of this interview had almost overwhelmed her. Mr. Cortlin saw it, and, ringing for her maid, silently withdrew.When Nora came she found her mistress pale as death, and very nearly lost to consciousness.
After that interview, so significant for her in so many ways, Bettina began to long to get away—quite, quite away into another world—before the master of Kingdon Hall should have set foot in this one. She was doing her best to take his place and act for him in such matters as required immediate attention and decision. She could not refuse to do this, but she was anxious to be gone, to be quite to herself, so that she might the better look life in the face and see what could be done with the wretched remnant of her existence. She had given up all idea of making her residence in England, and there was no other country in which she had any deep interest, save for the mournful interest that attached to her mother’s grave.
She had asked the lawyer to say to Lord Hurdly that she would, at his request, delay her departure for America a little while, but that she was extremely anxious to get off as soon as it would be possible. She also begged that he would cable when he was coming, as soon as he could make his plans to do so.
The days were active ones for Bettina in many new and serious ways. There were numerous businessmatters which she had to be consulted about, and these gave her an insight into the affairs of the estate which showed her far more clearly than ever what need there was for reform, and revived in her her ardent longing to have a hand in these reforms. But from all such thoughts as these she turned away heart-sickened.
There were certain visits from Lord Hurdly’s relations which had to be received, an ordeal that would have tried Bettina sorely had it not been that she made these the occasion for the investigation of Horace Spotswood’s character, nature, actions, interests, habits, etc., which the fateful letter had recommended her to make. She had never had one instant’s doubt of the truth of every word contained in that letter, but it was a sort of bitter pleasure to talk to these people and draw forth the manifestations of their delight at having Horace for the head of the family, and their confidence that this fact would result in pleasure and benefit to them all. From their ardent appreciation of him Bettina got at the fact of their universal dislike for the Lord Hurdly recently laid at rest with his ancestors.
Yet it was a relief when all the guests were gone and she was left alone to the mingled sweet and bitter feelings of her last days as mistress ofKingdon Hall. The worldly spirit in Bettina, diminished as it was, had not wholly disappeared, and never would as long as she was young and healthy and so beautiful. These attributes carried with them a certain love of display, and although it was a trial to be borne with dignity, it was still a trial to her to think of losing forever the splendid place which she had for a short year or two held in the great world.
Bettina was writing in the library one morning when her attention was arrested by the sound of an approaching footstep. The next moment a servant announced,
“Lord Hurdly.”
At this name she started violently. So long accustomed to associate it with one person, she forgot for the instant that another bore it now. As she rose, startled and expectant, through the portière held back by the servant there entered a man whose sharp dissimilarity to the image in her mind made her catch her breath.
The next second she knew that it was Horace, and realized that she was trembling from head to foot. The breadth of the room was between them, for he had paused just within the door, nodding to the servant to withdraw.
He stood there an instant in silence.
Perhaps she was no more startled by the surprise which the sight of him occasioned thanwas he at the sight of her; but the quality of the surprise was different. It was her beauty, her so far more than recollected beauty, which had arrested him and held him spellbound. He had left her sick with grief about her mother, the color faded from her cheeks, her eyes dulled with weeping. There had been, moreover, in her expression an apathy which his ardent words had failed to do away with. Besides these inherent things, the extrinsic points were glaringly a contrast to the present ones. Then her somewhat too slight figure had been dressed in gowns of village make and fit, and her lovely hair had been carelessly wound up, without regard to fashion or effect.
Now he saw confronting him a woman whom nature had endowed with a rare beauty, and for whom art had also done its best in the matter of outward adornment. True, she was clad in plain unrelieved black from head to foot, but no other costume could have so exquisitely displayed her glowing loveliness of coloring or the pure correctness of her outlines.
During the few seconds in which they stood looking at each other she had perceived also a great change in him. It was of a very different character, but it made all the more a strong appealto her, for he was mysteriously aged. Not only had the Eastern sun turned to bronze the once ruddy hues of his skin, but he had also lost flesh, and his hair was getting streaks of gray in it. His figure, too, was sparer, but it looked more powerful than ever; and still more apparent was the added look of strength in the familiar and yet subtly altered face.
There was no pause long enough to be embarrassing before he spoke.
“I hope you will excuse me,” he said (and, oh, the voice was altered too, unless she had forgotten that rich, vibrating tone in it!), “for coming upon you so suddenly. I know I should have given warning, but I had what I think a sufficient reason for not doing so. I am hoping earnestly that you will agree with me when you have heard it.”
“Pray sit down,” said Bettina, speaking mechanically, and from the mere instinct of observance of ordinary forms. She had no sooner spoken than she remembered that it was his own house, of which she was doing the honors to him. If he remembered it also, he gave no sign, for he took the chair she indicated, with the conventional “Thank you” of an ordinary visitor.
Bettina also had sunk into her chair, and satquite still, with her white hands clasped together on the dense black of her dress. She could not speak, yet she dreaded lest, in the silence, he might hear the beating of her heart. Its soft thuds were plainly audible to her, and all the blood from her cheeks seemed to have gone there.
“In any event, I should have been obliged to come to England soon,” said her companion, “but I should have put it off longer had I not felt it important to come on your account.”
Bettina’s eyes expressed a questioning surprise.
“On my account?” she said, vaguely.
“Certainly,” was the prompt, decided answer. “The only responsibility which comes near to me in my new and strange position is that of protecting the honor and credit of the name I have assumed. These, you will excuse me for saying, have been seriously, I may even say shamefully, disregarded by the terms of the late Lord Hurdly’s will.”
Bettina’s eyes had still that vague and puzzled look. She had not the least comprehension of what he meant. Could he be resenting the fact that, so far as it was practicable for him to do so, his cousin had disinherited him? But no, that was impossible. As she remained silent and expectant, he went on:
“Since he chose to disregard the duty and dignity of his position, it is for me, who must now bear his name, to repair that wrong so far as it is in my power to do so. It is for that explicit purpose that I am now come to speak to you.”
Still Bettina looked perplexed.
“I don’t understand exactly in what way the will has displeased you,” she said. “There was a great deal of it that I hardly took in. But in any case there is nothing for me to do. As you know, my services have not been asked, and certainly there is no place for them. I have nothing whatever to do with the executing of Lord Hurdly’s will. Indeed, my plans are all made to return to America immediately.”
“I cannot be surprised at your decision,” he said, with a certain resentment in his voice which she did not understand. “Certainly it would be natural for you to wish to shake off the dust of this land from your feet. But wherever you may choose to live for the future, it is my duty to see that you live as becomes the widow of Lord Hurdly, and it is for this purpose that I have hastened to get here before you should be gone.”
All was now clear, and with the illumination which had come to her from these words of histhe color flooded her pale cheeks. Her first sensation was of keenly wounded pride.
“You might have spared yourself such haste,” she said. “If you had taken the slight trouble to write to me, I could have saved you the long and hurried journey. So far from wishing to have more money than what I am legally entitled to, it is my purpose and decision to take nothing. I have of my own enough to live upon in the simple way in which I shall live for the future. Did you think so ill of me as to suppose that I would wish to grasp at more than my husband saw fit to leave me—or to take money at your hands?”
It was her instinct of pride which had caused her to use the words “my husband,” which another instinct at the same moment urged her to repudiate. But pride was now the uppermost feeling of her heart, and it supplied her with a sudden and sufficient strength for this hour’s need.
“This is in no sense a question between you and your late husband,” said Horace. (Was there not in him also a certain hesitation at that word, and did not the same feeling as in her compel him to its use?) “Nor is it a question between you and me. The obviously simple issueis what propriety demands as to the manner in which the widow of Lord Hurdly is provided for. It belongs to my own sense of the dignity of my position that the late Lord Hurdly’s widow should be situated as becomes her name and title, and I am determined to see that this is done.”
“Determined,” she said, a certain defiance in her quiet tone, “is not the word for this case. You may determine as you choose, but what will it avail if I determine not to touch a penny belonging to either the late or the present Lord Hurdly? You are very careful of the dignity of your position. I must also look to mine, which you seem strangely to have forgotten.”
His expression showed her plainly that these words of hers had cut deep into his consciousness. A swift compunction seized her heart, but her pride was still in the supremacy, and enabled her to stifle the feeling.
“I have not forgotten it,” he said. “It is because I have been mindful of the dignity of your position that I have urged this thing upon you. The conditions of the will need not be generally known if you will accept the right and proper income, which I wish, above all things, to see you have. Can you not believe me sincere in my desire to remove the indignity put upon you by amember of my family, and the bearer before me of a name and position of which it has now become my duty to maintain the credit? And can you not believe me just enough and kind enough to wish to see this done for your sake as well as for my own?”
Bettina’s face continued proudly hard. If the gentleness of her companion’s expression, the kindness of his manner, the delicate respect of his tones, made any appeal to her woman’s heart, the all-potency of her pride enabled her to conceal it. But the struggle between the two feelings at war within her made a desperate demand upon her strength. She felt that she would do well to put an end to this interview as soon as practicable. With this purpose she said, abruptly:
“I am willing to do full justice to your motives, but they cannot affect my action. My mind is quite made up. I shall return to America at once, and there the credit of Lord Hurdly’s name will not suffer any hurt, since I shall be practically out of the world. Certainly I shall be forever removed from the world in which his life will be spent. Do not think that I shall regret it. I shall not. My experience of your world has shown me that the mere possession of money, rank, position, influence, is powerless to bringhappiness. I thought once that if I should come to have these I could get pleasure and satisfaction from them, but I was wrong. My nature inherently loved importance and display, but I mistook the unessential for the essential. If I had had all these external things, together with the satisfaction of the inward needs, they might have made me happy. In themselves I have proved them to be worthless.”
She was compelled to say these words. The intimate knowledge of the character of her husband which had come to her after marriage made her long that Horace should know that had she really comprehended the man as he perhaps had known him all the while, she never could have become his wife. It was impossible for her to tell him this, but she caught eagerly at her present opportunity of letting him know that she had had no duty toward her late husband beyond the mere formal obligation of her wifehood. She could not bear Horace to think that she had loved him. Even now, under the softening influence that death imparts, that thought was intolerable to her. This was quite aside from his treatment of her in his will, which, indeed, was strangely little to her. It was the memory of the crafty and common nature under thatpolished exterior that made her recoil from the thought of him now.
If this feeling was strengthened by the contrast of the personality now present to her gaze, how could she be blamed? Surely the man who stood before her might have seemed to answer any woman’s heart’s desire as lover, companion, friend. How her conscience smote her for the doubts she had once had of him! When she remembered whose treachery it was that had created these doubts, there was hate in her heart.
She did not wish him to see the expression of this feeling in her face, so she rose abruptly and turned from him. As if he understood her, he rose also, and crossed the room to the desk at which she had been seated on his entrance.
Here were heaped papers and memoranda connected with the Kingdon Hall estates. Evidently he recognized their character, for he said:
“At least you have not refused to give me the help that I asked. I’ve been talking to Kirke, and he tells me you have been taking an interest in the affairs of the tenants. Thank you for this.”
In an instant the bitterness in Bettina’s heart was changed into a new and softer emotion. She saw the opportunity of effecting now what shehad been so powerless to effect in the past. Forgetting everything else, she came quickly to his side and took up one of the papers. This was in her own handwriting, and was a memorandum of some length. She held it away from him a moment, her face flushing, and a look of hesitation showing on it.
“I never intended that you should see this,” she said. “I began it long ago, and had to put it by; but recently I have taken it up again, without really knowing why, except that all my whole heart was in it.”
“What is it?” he asked. “I beg you to let me see it.”
“No,” she said. “It is not my affair, and I must remember that. It concerns some most deplorable facts which I have discovered concerning the management of the Kingdon Hall estates, but—”
“Then it is my affair,” he interrupted her; “and since you know what these abuses are, and have looked into them, you surely will not deprive me of the help that you could give. I ask it as a favor.”
Still Bettina hesitated, but he could see that she was longing to comply. He could imagine, also, what it was that held her back.
“Not as a favor to me,” he hastened to add; “I appeal to you in the name of these poor tenants, who have been so long neglected and abused. This is no new thing to me. I have seen it going on from the time I was a boy here, and I can truly say that almost the only pleasure that I have looked forward to in succeeding to the estates has been the righting of these wrongs. Surely you will not refuse to help me to do this.”
For answer, Bettina turned upon him a pair of ardent eyes that swam with tears.
“Oh, are you really going to do this blessed, glorious thing?” she said. She had forgotten herself for the moment, and was thinking only of them—the wretched beings whose wrongs had so long oppressed her, and who, it seemed, were to have justice and care and kindness at last. “You don’t know how hideous the condition of these poor creatures is, and how impossible it has been for me to do anything in the past. To think there is some one who will let me tell about it at last and give the help that is so needed! But you can do nothing with such a steward as Kirke. His heart is as cold as ice.”
“Kirke shall go at once. I have long believed that he was unworthy of the position he holds.If you will give me the benefit of your investigation and insight into the situation you will save me much trouble, and you can also feel that these poor people will be that much nearer to having their distress relieved.”
At these prompt, determined words her heart swelled, and again tears brimmed her eyes.
“Oh, thank God that you will help them!” she said. “Now that I am sure of that, I can go away contented. It would have broken my heart to leave them so—yet I had not dared to hope that I could do anything. You have no idea of the extent of it. It will take a great deal of money to give them new houses, proper sanitary conditions, and all the things they need.”
“Never mind that—only tell me what to do.”
“Butcanyou do it? I know how comparatively limited you are as to money.”
“Comparatively only,” he said, reassuringly. “I have much less than my predecessor had, but fortunately I have little pride and simple tastes. I can let the place in Leicestershire, where the hunting is good, and I can also lease the town house if necessary. Pray consider that the question of money is disposed of. I assure you that does not enter into it.”
Thus invited, Bettina sat down before the desk,while he took a seat near by, and with the papers before her she went fully into the questions at issue, showing a grasp of the situation which soon testified to her companion that she had studied it to some purpose. All the changes which she recommended were approved, but more than once his attention was diverted from the purpose of the future to an indignant contempt for the delinquencies of the past. It was hard for him to constrain himself to silence as to this, but Bettina thanked him in her heart for the successful effort which he made. She was too abject in her sense of compunction for her own past to feel inclined to severe judgment of another, and in her joy that these cherished plans of hers were to be immediately realized she was able to put by for the moment more personal trouble. She spoke with a fervor that made her beautiful face wellnigh adorable in its kind compassion, and when she would describe the wrongs and hardships of these poor simple folk her eyes at times would fill with tears of pity and her voice would tremble.
She knew it not, but in this hour she was making a new revelation of herself to Horace, which answered to the need of his maturer nature as marvellously as the Bettina of old had satisfied the needs of the ardent young fellow that he wasthen. If he remembered that Bettina only as being beautiful and beloved, he saw in this one a far nobler and more perfect beauty, as he recognized in her qualities more worthy to command love.
Here they were alone together, in a mood of extraordinary openness and sincerity, for they were thinking the same thoughts of helpfulness to others, and there was not an atom of the embarrassment of their personal relationship to come between them now. It was not singular, therefore, that he, for his part, should have longed to speak to her, heart to heart, of that mysterious thing which had divided them, and to tell her that, in spite of all—in spite of facts that had been flaunted before his eyes in society, in the public prints, and everywhere—he had never quite succeeded in stilling a small voice in his soul which had continued to declare that the young girl to whom he had so passionately given his love was less fickle and unfaithful than these facts had shown her to be. Now, more than ever, this insistent voice repeated itself. How he longed to ask her the simple question! But then came common-sense, and demanded, What question? Was there any question which he could ask her to which the fact and conditionsof her marriage to Lord Hurdly were not a final answer?
As for Bettina, she had also her longings to take advantage of that interview, when they were speaking together in such friendly converse, by telling him of the letter of confession which she had received, but pride here took the place of common-sense, and bade her to be silent.
They had gone over all the papers together now. There was no longer any excuse for lingering. He had given and repeated his assurances that all these abuses which she so lamented should be remedied, and she had thanked him again and again. Both felt that the time to part had come. And yet both felt an impulse to postpone it. It was her consciousness of this feeling which now made Bettina act. There was an influence from his very presence which alarmed her.
“I must go now,” she said, her voice a shade unsteady.
“No, it is I who am going,” was the answer. “I return at once to London, as I have neither the right nor the desire to intrude upon your privacy. I wish to say, however, that I do not accept your decision as to your future income. I beg you to give my wish, my earnest request,your consideration. I shall write to you. Perhaps I can put the case more clearly so. At all events, I shall try.”
Bettina shook her head.
“You will simply waste your time,” she said. “Nothing can change me from my purpose of going at once to America, with no income but my own little inheritance, and taking up my old life there.”
The word inheritance had suggested to both of them the thought of her mother. They saw the consciousness in each other’s eyes.
“How can you take up your old life there,” he said, “when the presence which made its interest, its very atmosphere, is gone? It is enough to kill you—and you will not have money to live elsewhere.”
The keen solicitude in voice and eyes could not be mistaken. It was evident that he cared for what she might suffer—what might ultimately become of her. The thought was rapture to her starved and lonely heart.
“I must bear it,” she said, trying to control her voice as well as her face. “Life will be no harder to me there than elsewhere.”
“You are wrong. In no other spot on earth will the loss of your mother so oppress you. Iknow what that has been to you, by my consciousness of what that possession was. And remember one thing, which gives me some right to speak to you as I am doing now—I loved your mother and she also loved me.”
At these words and the tones that accompanied them Bettina’s strength gave way. She dropped back in the seat from which she had risen, and, hiding her face in her hands, burst into tears.
She could not see the effect of her weeping on the man, who still stood motionless and erect before her. She did not know that the tears sprang into his eyes also, and that the whispered utterance of her name was on his lips.
He heard it, however, though she did not, and the knowledge that he had lost control of himself made him turn away and walk to the other end of the room.
When he had stood there a few seconds, with his back turned, he heard her voice, somewhat shaken, though with the accent of recovered self-possession, saying, in a tone of summons,
“Lord Hurdly—”
An inward revolt sprung up at being so addressed by her. The name had only sinister associations for him in any case, but to hear itfrom Bettina’s lips filled him with a sort of rage.
“Lord Hurdly,” she said again, and this time her voice had gained in steadiness, until it sounded mechanical and hard.
“I wish to express to you,” she said, when he had drawn a little nearer, “my thanks for your kind intentions concerning me. I can only repeat, however, that my decision is quite fixed, and that I shall carry out the plans I have made known to you. Do not urge me further. Do not write to me. It will be useless. Let me go back to the life from which you never should have taken me. You were mistaken in me from the first, and I have been nothing but a trouble and a hinderance to you. I am sorry. I ask you to forget it all if you can. But, above all things, I ask, if you would really help me and serve me in the one way in which I can be helped by you, that you will consider that the present moment closes our intercourse in every way, and will show me the respect, little as I deserve it, of proving to me that in this one instance, at least, you believe me capable of acting with rectitude and dignity, and of meaning what I say.”
He did not answer her. He only stood profoundly still and looked at her. That gaze, thesearching, scrutinizing power of it, made her afraid. Trembling with terror of what she might reveal in answer to it, she turned suddenly and vanished through a door behind her, leaving him standing there, and with a consciousness that his keen eyes were on her yet, reading what she so ardently desired to conceal.
Once in her own room, she locked the door, and then ran swiftly to the window, which gave her a view of the terrace below.
There she saw waiting a hired trap, with its driver drowsing in the sunlight. As she looked, she saw the man from whom she had just parted come rather slowly down the steps and get into the shabby conveyance. His hat-brim hid the upper part of his face, but she saw the stern set of his jaw, the bronzed pallor of his cheeks.
She watched the little trap until it had disappeared behind some great oaks, which were one of the glories of Kingdon Hall. In a strange way she had come to love this stately old place, and it gave her a pang to feel that she was about to look her last on it. This feeling, however, was subordinated to another, which literally tore her heart; this was that, by the use of every means of thought and action within her power, she hadquite determined never to run the risk of seeing this man again.
She knew that her only safety lay in flight, and she set to work at once to make her preparations to fly.
In the days that followed, Bettina’s only resource was in bodily activity. She wrote at once and took her passage on a steamer to sail for America one week from the day of Horace’s visit. Then, with Nora’s help, she set to work to do her packing. The French maid was sent away, and her lady refused all other offers of service.
Her first impulse had been to leave all her wardrobe and personal belongings behind her, and this she would undoubtedly have done but for the counteracting instinct to remove from any possibility of the sight of the future occupant of these apartments any smallest reminder of the late Lady Hurdly. No doubt another bearer of that name would soon be installed in them, and to her the least reminder of the beautiful Bettina who had once so strangely come to it would naturally be offensive.
With this thought in her mind, she eagerlyhelped Nora to collect and pack away every trace of her ever having lived here. One record of the fact it was out of her power to remove, and this was the full-length portrait of her, in all the state and magnificence of her proud position, which hung in the picture-gallery, and which Horace had never seen. Neither had he ever seen her in such a guise, and, in spite of her, there was a certain exultation in her breast when she imagined the moment of his first beholding it. Another moment, equally charged with mingled pride and pain, was the anticipation of the time when the next bearer of the name and title should come to have her portrait hung there. No Lady Hurdly who had come before could bear the comparison with her, and she knew it. Was it not, therefore, reasonable to believe that those who followed her might suffer as much by the contrast?
But these feelings of satisfaction in the consciousness of her appropriateness to such a setting as Kingdon Hall were only momentary, and many of those busy hours of work were interspersed with lonely fits of weeping, when even Nora was excluded from her mistress’s room. The good creature, who had never been burdened with mentality, went steadily on with her workand asked no questions; yet it was not unknown to her that Bettina’s unhappiness depended not altogether upon the fact of her recent widowhood, or even upon the disastrous consequences of it in her future life.
Two or three times Nora had brought to her mistress letters in a handwriting which she had not forgotten, and although she made no sign of suspicion, she did connect these letters with Bettina’s unhappiness.
Certainly it was no wonder that such letters as she received from Horace now should have so desperately sad an influence on her. In them he begged, argued, pleaded with her to grant him this one request, even using her mother’s name to touch and change her. Indeed, there was a tone in these letters that she could scarcely understand. Keenly conscious as she was of the injustice of which she had been guilty toward him, it seemed incredible that he could so ignore it as to manifest any personal interest in her on her own account. She even felt a certain regret that he could so lose sight of this flagrant fact. It had come to be a vital need to her to have the ideal of Horace in her life. It was now almost more essential to her to have something to admire than something to love. Under these conditionsshe felt a certain sense of disappointment in him, that he could seem to forget the deep wrong she had done him. And yet, in utter contradiction to this feeling, his kind ignoring of it soothed her tortured heart.
She sent no answer to these letters. She even hoped that by taking this course she might make the impression on him that she did not read them. This was her design and her consolation, even while she read and re-read them with a devouring eagerness. She never paused to ask herself why this was. She avoided any investigation into her feeling for Horace. It was enough that, in spite of all the self-accusation and self-abasement which she carried in her heart, this being who knew the very worst of her could still think her worthy of kindness and respect. When she thought of this she felt as if she could go on her knees to him.
One fear was constantly before her mind, and that was that he might seek a personal interview with her again. She dared not trust herself to this, instinctively as she longed for it. It was, therefore, with positive terror in her breast that she heard one morning from Nora that Lord Hurdly was in the house, having come down by train from London.
“I cannot see him—I will not!” she cried, in an impassioned protest, which only Nora could have seen her portray.
“He did not ask to see you,” said Nora. “I met him in the hall, and he told me to say to you that he required some papers which were in the library, and that he would, with your permission, like the use of the room for a few hours. He told me to say that he had had luncheon, and would not disturb you in any way.”
At these words Bettina felt a sinking of the heart, which was her first consciousness of the sudden hope she had been entertaining. This made her reproach herself angrily for such weakness and want of pride, and with this feeling in her heart, she said, abruptly,
“There is no answer to Lord Hurdly’s message.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Nora, hesitatingly, “but I am quite sure he is expecting an answer.”
“I say there is no answer,” Bettina repeated, with a sudden sternness. “Lord Hurdly is in his own house. He can come and go as he chooses. His asking permission of me is a mere farce.”
Nora ventured to say no more, and withdrew in silence, leaving her mistress alone with the consciousness that Horace was in the very housewith her, and that at any moment she might, if she chose, go to him and tell him all the truth.
And why did she not? That old feeling between them was quite dead. She had a right to clear herself from a condemnation which she did not deserve—a right, at least, to make known the palliating circumstances in the case. In any other conceivable instance she would not have hesitated to do so. What was it, then, which made it so impossible in this instance?
The answer to this question leaped up in her heart, and so struggled for recognition that she had an instinct to run away from herself that she might not have to face it. She wanted to close her eyes, so that she might shut out the truth that was before her mental vision, and to put her hands over her ears, that she might not hear the voice that clamored to her heart.
Surely a part of this feeling was the compunction which she felt for having wronged him. That she might openly acknowledge. But that was not all. She was aware of something more in her own heart. Even that she might have stifled, and, supported by her pride, might have concisely told him of the error under which she had acted. But there was still another thing that entered in. This was a faint, delicious,disturbing, unacknowledged to her own heart, suspicion about Horace himself. He had said nothing to warrant her in the belief that his anxiety about her future was anything more than the satisfaction of his own self-respect, but her heart had said things which she trembled to hear, and there was a certain evidence of her eyes. In leaving her the other day—or rather at the moment of her hurried leaving of him—he had looked at her strangely.
That look had lingered in her consciousness, and without effort she could recall it now. In doing so her cheeks flushed, her heart beat quicker. She felt tempted to woo the sweet sensation, and by every effort of imagination to quicken it into keener life, but the seductiveness of this temptation terrified her.
She started from her seat and looked about her. How long had she sat there musing—dreaming dreams which every instinct of womanly pride compelled her to renounce? She wondered if he had gone. Once more came that mingled hope and fear that he might seek an interview with her before leaving. The hope was stronger than ever, and for that reason the fear was stronger too.
A footstep in the hall arrested her attention,and she stood palpitating, with her hand upon her heart. It passed, leaving only silence; but it had been a useful warning to her. Suppose, in her present mood, Horace should make his way to her sitting-room and knock for admittance. Would she—could she—send him away, with her heart crying out for the relief of speech and confession to him as it was doing now?
With a hurried impulse she caught up a light wrap of dense black material, and passed rapidly into the hall. Her impulse was to go out of doors, to get away from the house until he should have left it; but in order to do this from her apartments, she must pass by the library, and this she feared to do. So she changed her purpose, and stepping softly that no one might hear her, she entered the long picture-gallery, and closed the door behind her with great care to make no noise. Many of the blinds were closed, but down at the far end where her picture hung there was some light, and with an impulsive desire to look at this picture, with a view to the impression that it might make on Horace when he should see it, she glided noiselessly down the room toward it.
The full-length portraits to right and left of her loomed vaguely through the half-light. Sheglanced at each one as she passed slowly along, with the feeling that she was taking leave of them forever. In this way her gaze had been diverted from the direction of her own portrait, and she was within a few yards of it when, looking straight ahead of her, she saw between the picture and herself the figure of a man.
He stood as still as any canvas on the wall, and gazed upward to the face before him. Bettina, as startled as if she had seen a ghost in this dim-lighted room, stood equally still behind him, her hand over her parted lips, as if to stifle back the cry that rose.
And still he stood and gazed and gazed, while she, as if petrified, stood there behind him, for moments that seemed to her endless.
Presently she saw his shoulders raised by the inhalation of a deep-drawn breath, which escaped him in an audible sigh. The sound recalled her. Turning with a wild instinct of escape, she fled down the long room, her black cape streaming behind her, and vanished in the shadows out of which she had emerged.
Somehow, she never knew how, she let herself out into the hall, and thence she sped through the long corridor, down the stairs, past the open door of the vacant library, and out into thegrounds. She met no one, and when at last she paused in the dense shadows of some thick shrubbery, she had the satisfaction of feeling that she had been unobserved. Here, too, she was quite secluded, and in the effort to collect herself she sat down on the grass, her knees drawn up, her forehead resting on them, her clasped hands strained about them.
How long she remained so, while her leaping heart grew gradually calmer, she did not know.
A sound aroused her from her lethargy. It was the clear whistle of some one calling a dog. She knew who it was before a voice said,
“Here, Comrade—come to me, sir.”
The voice was not far off, but the shrubbery was between it and her. She would have felt safe but for the dog. She did not move a muscle.
The footsteps were drawing near her, and now bounding leaps of a dog could be heard also. Both passed, and she began to breathe more freely, when what she had dreaded came. The dog, stopping his gambols, began to sniff about him. The next moment he had bounded through the shrubbery and was yelping gleefully at her side.
Instantly she sprang to her feet and stood there, slight and tall and straight in her long blackwrap, the image of pallid woe. All the blood had left her face, and her eyes were wide and terrified.
It was so that she appeared to the man who, parting the branches of the thick foliage, stood silent and surprised before her. She might have been the very spirit of widowhood, so desolate she looked.
Raising his hat automatically, he said, in a strained, unnatural voice, “Can I do anything for you?”
She tried to speak, but speech eluded her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but can I do anything for you, Lady Hurdly?”
Oh, that name! She had had an instinct to free herself at last from the burden she had borne, and to tell him, in answer to his question, that he could do this for her—he could hear her tell of the wretched treachery by which she had been led to do him such a wrong, and of the misery of its consequences in her life. But the utterance of that name recalled her to herself. It reminded her not only who she was, but also who and by what means he was also.