A Manifest Destiny Part 11

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 a.s.sociations for him in any case, but to hear it from 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 rect.i.tude and dignity, and of meaning what I say."

He did not answer her. He only stood profoundly still and looked at her. That gaze, the searching, 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 had quite 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.

CHAPTER XIII

In the days that followed, Bettina's only resource was in bodily activity. She wrote at once and took her pa.s.sage 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 antic.i.p.ation of the time when the next bearer of the name and t.i.tle 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-abas.e.m.e.nt 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 impa.s.sioned 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 un.o.bserved. Here, too, she was quite secluded, and in the effort to collect herself she sat down on the gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed, 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.