This fear was based upon the clearer knowledge of Lord Hurdly's character which had come to her since marriage. She had found in him an inexorable resolution to have what he wanted in life, which had rendered him, more than once within her knowledge, unscrupulous as to the means he used in the securing of his ends. This it was which had planted in her mind the awful though remote possibility of his having been, in some manner, insincere in his representations of Horace's nature and character.

But then there was the letter from his friend which she had seen with her own eyes, with the St. Petersburg mark, so familiar to her, on the envelope, and which had been written by a person who could not have known that she would ever see it. Surely that was enough to settle all doubts as to the character and conduct of the man to whom she had first pledged herself in marriage, and she had at least the satisfaction of knowing that her present husband could be charged with no such faults. His indifference to her s.e.x was proverbial in society, and that she alone, of all the women he had seen--so many of whom had angled for him openly--had been able to do away with his aversion to marriage was a tribute in which she could not help feeling a certain pride, the more so as she saw every day new proofs of his fastidiousness, as well as his importance.

So she stifled this dread suggestion and forced her thoughts into other channels. This was to be more easily accomplished when her body was actively employed; so she took long rides on horseback, attended by a groom, or long walks in the park alone. In these walks Horace's big dog Comrade would often join her. The creature had taken a fancy to her, which seemed, in some strange way, to comfort her.

Besides these diversions, she had her large correspondence to dispose of every day; for in her important position she had of course established numberless points of contact with the world.

So the time went by until Lord Hurdly's return, and the day that followed saw Kingdon Hall filled with guests. After that there were few moments of reflection for its mistress, as the duty of doing the honors of this great establishment demanded all her time.

CHAPTER VI

Bettina loved this power and importance. The drama of her present life was like the unfolding, before her gaze, of a beautiful series of pictures which she had conceived in her imagination, and which some enchanter's word had turned into reality. The crowded functions of the London season had somewhat palled upon her, though she had not quite owned it to herself; but here she was the centre of the system, the light around which these lesser lights revolved, and she seemed, under these conditions, to shine with an increased radiance. Her manners, where they differed from those of the women about her, seemed to gain rather than lose by the contrast, and her costumes seemed to be endless in their variety as well as in their beauty.

Certainly she had an air of being born to the purple, and her husband's pride in her was undoubted, if unexpressed.

Bettina was aware that this pride was his strongest feeling in regard to her, and she was abundantly willing to have it so. If she had found it difficult to fall in love with a youth who might have disturbed the heart of Diana, she was not likely to have fallen in love with the cool, cynical, narrow-chested, thin-haired man whom she could yet feel a certain pride in owning as her husband, since his appearance, no less than his name, was distinguished. She had always had a theory that she would never love deeply any one besides her mother, and her two experiences in the lottery of marriage, so different as they were, convinced her that her knowledge of herself had been correct. She was glad of it. The hot anguish which at times even yet contracted her heart at the thought of her mother made her hope devoutly that she would never love again. The joy of it could not be worth the pain.

When Lady Hurdly's house-party broke up, she went with her husband on a round of visits to other country-houses. This phase of society she liked, and she threw herself into it with ardor. But toward the end she wearied of these visits, as she had wearied of London, and was glad to get back to Kingdon Hall. Instead of rest, however, she found restlessness, and the disturbing thoughts which she had smothered before came back with added force. It was a relief to her to think of going abroad--Lord Hurdly having made plans for their spending some months of the winter on the Continent.

There was one instinctive fear connected with this plan--the possibility that she might by some chance encounter Horace. She had little fear that he would come to England. What would it matter if she should meet him? He had never been anything to her, really--so she a.s.sured herself--and she had certainly been, in reality, quite as little to him. Yet she did unreasonably dread such a meeting with him, and felt anxious to know where he was.

Accordingly, one morning she asked Parlett, in a casual way, if she ever heard from Mr. Horace.

"Oh yes, my lady; he writes to me now and then," replied the housekeeper. Bettina had not expected to hear this; her only thought was to draw out some information gained by hearsay.

"He is at St. Petersburg?" she asked, indifferently.

"No, my lady; at Simla," was the unexpected answer. "He has been there a good while. I had a pamphlet from him the other day. When he has not time to answer my letters, he often sends me a paper, or something like that, to show me what he has been doing. I can't always understand them, but he knows I like to have them just because he wrote them."

Bettina was unwilling to show her ignorance, so she did not say that she had no knowledge that he ever wrote for publication, and when Parlett went on to offer her the reading of the pamphlet she said, with an indifferent kindness,

"Yes, bring it to me, by all means. I am very glad that Mr. Horace keeps up his intercourse with the old place, which of course may yet be his. I shall take an interest in seeing what he writes."

She went on to speak of certain changes which she wished made in some of the sleeping-apartments, and then dismissed her housekeeper with something less than her usual graciousness of manner.

Bettina felt a strong desire to be alone. These tidings of Horace, slight as they were, had been disturbing to her. Indeed, as time went on and her knowledge of Lord Hurdly increased, the fear that he might have dealt insincerely with his cousin or with herself grew steadily. She saw proofs every day of the ruthlessness with which he sacrificed men, and even what should have been principles, to gain his ends. By the light of the same knowledge she realized how his meeting with her had disturbed him in his customary calmness of poise, and she argued from this fact how important it had been to him to gain his object of making her his wife.

In the midst of these reflections a house-maid tapped at her door, with some folded papers on a tray.

"If you please, my lady, Mrs. Parlett sends you these," she said.

She was a sweet-faced, rosy-cheeked English girl, with a soft voice and very pretty manner, and at present she was gently agitated by the privilege of speaking to her lady, whom she, as well as all the rest of the maids, regarded as a sort of cross between angel and G.o.ddess.

Bettina thanked her with a kind smile which sent her away completely happy; then, in the privacy of her own chamber, she opened the papers. One was a diplomatic pamphlet on a public question in the line of the writer's professional work. The other was an article which went very thoroughly into the question of the best means of relieving the famine then raging in India.

It seemed to Bettina that she had vaguely heard that there was such a famine, but she had not felt more than a kindly casual interest in it as an unfortunate matter which she could not help. Now, however, as she read the account which this paper gave, and the lines which it followed in the effort to render help, her heart burned within her.

Here was a man who had no more power than herself to give money help--far less, indeed, perhaps. Yet how he was spending his soul, his strength, his time, his talent, his very heart-beats, on this effort to go to the rescue of these perishing thousands! No one who read the throbbing sentences of that paper could have a doubt of the writer's earnest desire to help, or of his ability to move the hearts and wills of others to come to his aid. It wrought upon her strangely.

How much money could she lay her hands on? She had no idea, but she would make it her business to find out. There was her own little income, which she had taken no account of since her marriage, and there was the money which Lord Hurdly had put to her credit in the bank. She would get all she could and send it--anonymously, of course--to the famine fund which she had casually heard mentioned.

But, oh, what a pitiful offering it seemed compared with what this man was giving with such lavish self-devotion! From the fervor of his printed words, and his report of what had so far been accomplished, she saw that the very pa.s.sion of his heart was in it. Of his ardent temperament, his quick sympathies, she had knowledge in her own experience. Perhaps it had been these very traits of his which had led him to the conduct which had separated them.

At this thought, that faint suspicion that he had been misrepresented to her rose in her heart again; but she choked it back. That would be too awful. Besides the hideous self-accusations which would have followed the admission of this doubt, there was another argument against it which still had its powerful hold on her. She had grown accustomed to her great position in the social world, and her inborn instinct for power and admiration was deliciously gratified by the brilliancy of her present circ.u.mstances. She found it very agreeable to be Lady Hurdly, with all that that name and t.i.tle implied, and she did not, even in this moment of such unwonted emotion, lose sight of that fact.

Yet the reading of this little paper had stirred a feeling in Bettina's heart which she had not felt for so long a time--a yearning tenderness for some object outside herself: a longing that her health and strength might avail for others bereft of these blessings. It was akin to the emotion she had felt by her mother's dying bed, and as it swept over her she wept as she had not done since she had knelt beside that sacred spot.

Instinctively now she fell upon her knees. She tried to pray--but for what? She could not compose a form of prayer or articulate a definite wish. All she could do was to pray to G.o.d--the G.o.d in whom her mother had trusted--to give her this thing, this unknown boon which He knew her pa.s.sionate need of.

When she rose from her knees she put her hands to her head, and, pressing her temples hard, looked about her, as if in search of some object which might help her to the comprehension of her own mood.

Then, running her fingers inside the collar of her dress, she drew out, by a slight chain, a small locket, which contained her mother's picture and a lock of her white hair. It was a sort of talisman whose mere touch gave her a sense of comfort. She did not open it now, but held it between her palms and pressed her cheek against it, standing there alone, and presently she whispered:

"What is it, mother darling? What is it that you seem trying to say to me? Oh, if you can ever speak to me, speak now, and I will listen as I did not do when you were here beside me! There is something that I ought to do, and I am not doing it. There is something I am doing which distresses you. That is the feeling that I have. Oh, my mother--my lovely, precious, good, good mother--if I had you here, you would tell me what it is that I ought to do--and I would do it!"

She ceased her half-inarticulate whispers, and stood intensely still--almost, it seemed, as if she waited for an answer to them.

But there came no answer save the still, small voice within her soul, which had so often tried to speak before, and which even yet she could not, would not listen to.

This voice suggested to her with persistent iteration that she should even now look strictly into the evidence which had so quickly sufficed to convince her that the young and ardent lover who had wooed her so pa.s.sionately, and promised her such loyalty and faith and devotion, had been false to his professions and his promises alike.

Suppose she should investigate; suppose she should get proof that she as well as he had been falsely dealt with, that he had been true in every word and thought--what then? Could she endure to keep, after that, the position of wife to the man who had so deceived and injured two beings who had believed him? a.s.suredly she could not. What, then, would be her alternative? To leave him and go back to the poor life at home, which her mother's presence had justified and glorified, but which without that presence, and with the contrast of her present position in her mind, would be too intolerable a thought to contemplate.

No, she had no sufficient reason to doubt the representations that her husband had made to her. She would try to accept them more implicitly for the future, and so fight against such disturbing ideas. There were ample means of diversion within her reach. Her sojourn abroad would soon begin, and she must fight against any recurrence of her present mood of weakness.

If she was to win this fight, however, there was one precaution which she felt that she must take. This was to avoid the very name of Horace Spotswood, and, as far as might be possible, every thought of him as well.

Her foreign travels began, and she then had the a.s.surance that this effort would not be difficult of accomplishment. There were a thousand new issues for Bettina's interest and feelings in her constantly changing surroundings, and these were sufficiently absorbing to do away with lately disturbing considerations. The world had still its powerful charm for Bettina, and she was now seeing the world in a very fascinating aspect.

CHAPTER VII

As Bettina had found the London season delightful, and yet had been quite content to see it close, and as the same had been true of her experience, both as hostess and as guest, at the country-house parties which had followed the season, so it was also with her foreign travels, although she found much to interest and delight her in the various cities which she visited with Lord Hurdly. He was received with distinction everywhere--a fact partly due to his prominent position in Parliament, and partly to his social importance and the acknowledged beauty of his wife.

Bettina enjoyed it, certainly, and found it very helpful to her in carrying out her resolve to banish the agitating thoughts which would recur whenever she thought of Horace. She had managed to stop thinking of him almost entirely, and to live only for the satisfaction of each day as it pa.s.sed.

After a while, however, she began to feel that there was a certain flatness in the sort of pleasure which consisted so largely in being an object of admiration, for she had not been able herself to feel much enthusiasm for the people whom she met. She did not make friends easily, perhaps because she did not greatly care to have friends. Her mother's delicate health had left her little time for other companionships, even if she had desired them, and since the loss of her mother her heart had seemed to close up, and her capacity for caring for people, never very great, was lessening every day.

Several times during her travels she had heard Horace spoken of.

On these occasions she had not betrayed the fact that she had any knowledge of him, and so the talk about him had been quite unrestrained. She had heard it said by one man that "he was turning out a very earnest fellow"; by another that "his pamphlets were making quite a stir"; and, again, that he "might do something worth while in diplomacy if he'd let philanthropy alone." Another man had said that "all he needed was to marry money, and he'd have a great career before him."

When Bettina returned from her travels these few remarks, overheard at dinner-tables or in public places, seemed in some unaccountable way to be the most important things she had secured out of her late experiences. Certainly they were the most insistently recurring, and the idea was forced upon her that the way in which men spoke of Horace Spotswood was a strong contrast to the tone of the letter from Lord Hurdly's friend.

All this was a source of distress to her. She would have preferred to believe the letter, for such a belief would have rid her of the sting of self-reproach; but, try as she might, she could not wholly get her consent to it.