It was a relief to her to say this much. He could gather nothing from it, and she wanted him to know that she had freed her soul from every vestige of its bondage to the man whom she chose to designate as his cousin rather than by any relationship to herself--even a past one. This point did not escape him.
"It is with humiliation that I receive your reminder that that man was, in flesh and blood at least, akin to me," was the answer; "and for that reason I have felt it to be my duty to make whatever poor reparation may be in my power for the evil that he has done."
He spoke with extreme seriousness, and there was a tone in his last words which conveyed to Bettina the suspicion that they referred to something more than any act of Lord Hurdly's which had heretofore been mentioned between them.
She waited, therefore, in some agitation to hear what his next words should be.
"I shall have to ask your forgiveness," he said, "for touching upon a matter which might well seem to be an impertinence on my part. The necessity is forced upon me, however, and I shall be as brief as possible, if you will be good enough to listen."
Bettina answered merely by a bend of the head.
"As long as I can remember," he began, "I have had a certain instinctive distrust of the late Lord Hurdly. It grew with my growth; but I never thought it proper, under the then existing circumstances, to give expression to it. As time went on, observation confirmed instinct, and it became evident to me that he was a man of powerful will, and was more or less unscrupulous in the attainment of its ends. After his death, in going into the affairs of the estate, and various other matters which came under my observation, I found that the truths laid bare before me revealed him as a far worse man even than I had imagined. It was a revolting manifestation in every sense; but even when those matters had been closed up--when I supposed that I was done with the man and aware of the worst--a revelation was made to me which, though of a piece with the rest, and no worse in its essence and kind, came home to me with a thousandfold intensity, from the fact that it nearly concerned both myself and you."
Bettina's heart beat wildly. She dared not look at him, and with an instinct to protect herself from betrayal at every cost, she said, in a voice which was so cool and calm that the sound of it surprised her as it fell upon her ear: