it was when bettina was a matter of three hours out at sea that lord hurdly arrived at kingdon hall, and, on being admitted, ordered the servant to say to lady hurdly that he wished to see her. his surprise was great when the man informed him that lady hurdly had that day sailed for america.
dismissing the servant, he went to the library and shut himself up there alone. how strangely was this house altered to him in one moment’s time! just now he had felt a presence in it which had made every atom of it significant. now, how dead, empty, meaningless, it had suddenly become!
the effect of this change was almost startling to him, and for the first time he had the courage to face himself and to demand of his own soul an explanation.
he was a man of a peculiarly uncomplex nature. when, on meeting bettina, he for the [pg 180]first time fell deeply in love, he had looked upon the matter as a finality, and he had never ceased so to regard it. when she deserted him, without giving him a chance to speak, he had, in the overwhelming bitterness of his heart, forsworn all women. it had never occurred to him to put another in bettina’s place. for a long time a passionate resentment possessed him. when he knew that bettina had married his cousin, this resentment had had two objects to feed upon instead of one; but at first the bitterness of his anger against the being in whom he had supremely believed greatly outweighed that against the being in whom he had never believed. lord hurdly had never had it in his power to wound and anger him as bettina could. so, when he got transferred from st. petersburg to simla, it was with the instinct of removing himself as far as possible from bettina. of the other he scarcely thought.
when, however, the first consternation of the sudden blow was over, and he grew calm enough to be capable of anything like temperate thought, he tried to imagine how this strange state of things had come about.
obviously bettina must have sought lord hurdly out, and it was almost certain that she [pg 181]had done this with a view to mediating between him and his offending heir. he recalled her having said, more than once, that she intended to win him over, and he pictured to himself what had probably transpired in the fulfilment of her plan. lord hurdly, who was notoriously indifferent to women, saw in bettina a new type, and, as consequent events proved, became possessed of the wish to have her for his wife. this being so, he had probably not scrupled as to the means to this end. gradually, from having held bettina chiefly guilty, horace began to feel that it was quite possible that she had been less so than the artful and determined man, who had undoubtedly brought to bear on her all the wiles of which he was master.
what the wiles were, how unscrupulously they were employed to effect any end that he had in view, horace was now more than ever aware.
and every fresh revelation of them tended to soften him toward bettina. he was in the habit of trusting his instincts, and these had as determinedly declared to him that his cousin was false. on his return to england, after lord hurdly’s death, both of these instincts had found ample confirmation. the more he looked into the affairs of his predecessor, in his relations to his tenants, [pg 182]his family, his lawyers, and the world at large, the more did his mistrust and condemnation of him deepen, while, as for bettina, it took little more than the impression of his first interview with her to restore almost wholly his old belief in her truth and nobleness.
on the basis of her having been deceived by lord hurdly about him, he could forgive her her marriage. where would her desolate heart have turned for comfort? and he knew her nature well enough to realize that what lord hurdly had to offer might have seemed likely to serve her as a substitute for happiness. he knew, moreover, that bettina had never loved him in the sense in which he had loved her, and this fact made his judgment gentler.
as he stood there alone, in the great house, strangely empty now that her rich presence was removed from it, he wished with all his heart that he had gone to her, and forcing her to look at him with those candid eyes of hers, had said: “bettina, tell me the truth. why did you do it?” oh, if he only had!
then reflection forced upon him the possible answer that he might have received. she might have coldly resented the impertinence of such a speech, or she might have given him to understand [pg 183]that what appeared true was really true—namely, that his cousin’s splendid offer was preferred to his poor one. yes, he was no doubt a fool to hold on to his belief in bettina in face of the obvious facts. the thing he had to do was to overcome it, and go on with his life and career quite apart from her.
this would have been the easier to do but for one thing. he had satisfied himself that bettina had been unhappy in her marriage to lord hurdly. it was evident that the worldly importance which it had given her had not sufficed her needs. he knew—her own mother had avowed it to him—that bettina was ambitious; but he knew, what the same source had also revealed, that she had a good and loving heart. what he felt was that she had been taught by bitter experience the emptiness of mere worldly gratification, and that poor heart of hers was breaking in its loneliness.
but then came reason again, and pointed to the hard facts before his eyes. what a fool he was to go on constructing a romantic theory out of his own consciousness when bettina, by definite choice and decision, had proved herself to be, what he must compel himself to consider her, both heartless and false!
fortified by the bitter support of this conception [pg 184]of her, he left the library, and, for the first time since his return, made the complete tour of the house. through most of the apartments he passed swiftly enough, but in two of them he paused. the first was the long picture-gallery, where he looked critically at his own boyish portrait, wondering if bettina had ever looked at it, and what feelings it might have aroused, and then passed on and stood before that most beautiful of all the lady hurdlys who had been or who might ever be. but this was too demoralizing to that mood of hardness that he had but recently assumed, and so he turned his back on the gracious image and walked away.
it was not long, however, before he found himself in bettina’s own apartments. these he remembered well, and in the main they were unchanged. yet what a subtle difference he felt in them! here on this great gloomy bed had that poor orphan girl slept, or else lain wakeful in the dread consciousness which must have come to her when once she realized the nature and character of the man to whom she had given herself in marriage. here in this stately mirror had she seen herself arrayed in the splendid clothes which were the poor price for which she had sold her birthright. he stood [pg 185]and looked at himself in the mirror, with an uncanny feeling that behind his own image there was that of the beautiful bettina, whom once he had thought to protect forever by his love and strength and tenderness, and who now, with only a hired servant, was alone in the great shipful of strangers, on her way to the loneliness of that empty little village which her mother’s presence had once so adequately filled for her.
he went to the wardrobe and opened the door, hoping to find some trace of bettina. but no; all was orderly and void. then he passed on to the dressing-table and opened the drawers, one by one. in the last there lay a small hair-pin of fine bent wire. he had an impulse to take it, but, with a muttered imprecation on his folly, he called to aid his recent resolution, and hastily left the room.
