How much money could she lay her hands on? She had no idea, but she would make it her business to find out. There was her own little income, which she had taken no account of since her marriage, and there was the money which Lord Hurdly had put to her credit in the bank. She would get all she could and send it--anonymously, of course--to the famine fund which she had casually heard mentioned. But, oh, what a pitiful offering it seemed compared with what this man was giving with such lavish self-devotion! From the fervor of his printed words, and his report of what had so far been accomplished, she saw that the very passion of his heart was in it. Of his ardent temperament, his quick sympathies, she had knowledge in her own experience. Perhaps it had been these very traits of his which had led him to the conduct which had separated them.
At this thought, that faint suspicion that he had been misrepresented to her rose in her heart again; but she choked it back. That would be too awful. Besides the hideous self-accusations which would have followed the admission of this doubt, there was another argument against it which still had its powerful hold on her. She had grown accustomed to her great position in the social world, and her inborn instinct for power and admiration was deliciously gratified by the brilliancy of her present circumstances. She found it very agreeable to be Lady Hurdly, with all that that name and title implied, and she did not, even in this moment of such unwonted emotion, lose sight of that fact.
Yet the reading of this little paper had stirred a feeling in Bettina's heart which she had not felt for so long a time--a yearning tenderness for some object outside herself: a longing that her health and strength might avail for others bereft of these blessings. It was akin to the emotion she had felt by her mother's dying bed, and as it swept over her she wept as she had not done since she had knelt beside that sacred spot.
Instinctively now she fell upon her knees. She tried to pray--but for what? She could not compose a form of prayer or articulate a definite wish. All she could do was to pray to God--the God in whom her mother had trusted--to give her this thing, this unknown boon which He knew her passionate need of.