"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.