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 eagerly helped 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 work and 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
conditions she 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
house with 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. She glanced 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 the grounds. 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 black wrap, 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.
[Illustration: "THE VERY SPIRIT OF WIDOWHOOD"]
"Leave me," she said, throwing out her hand with a repellent gesture.
"I have gone through much, and I am not strong. If you have any
mercy, any kindness, leave me to myself. It is not proper, perhaps,
that I should ask any favor of you, but I do. I beg you not to speak
or write to me again until I have done what must be done here, and
gone away from this place and this country forever."
There was an instant's silence, during which Comrade nestled close to
her and tried to lick her hand, all the time looking longingly at
Horace. Then a voice, constrained and low, said, sadly: "I will grant
your favor, Lady Hurdly. What of the favor I have asked of you?"
"I cannot. It is impossible," she cried. "Surely I have been
humiliated enough without that. It is the one thing you have in your
power to do for me, never to mention that subject again."
"I shall obey you," he said; "but in return I ask that you will not
forget my request of you, though you have forced me to silence. While
a wrong so gross as that goes unrepaired I can never rest. Remember
this, and that you have it in your power to relieve me of this
burden. Now I will go."
He turned and vanished through the shrubbery, Comrade after him.
Bettina sank upon the ground, covering her face with the long drapery
of her cape. Suddenly she felt a touch. Her heart leaped, and she
uncovered her head, showing the light of a great hope in her eyes.
But it was only Comrade, nestling close to her, with human-eyed
compassion. She threw her arms around him, and pressed her face
against his shaggy side.
"Did he send you to me, Comrade," she whispered, "because he knew
that I was miserable and alone?"
The gentle creature whined and wagged his tail as if in desperate
effort to reply.
"I know he did! I know he did!" she cried. "Oh, how kind and good and
unrevengeful he is! And I can never tell him the truth. I can never
tell that to any human being, Comrade, but I'll tell it to you." She
drew his head close to her lips and whispered a few words in his ear.
Then she sprang to her feet, a great light in her eyes, as she threw
her arms upward with an exultant movement, and cried, as if to some
unseen witness up above, "I have said it!"