It may seem strange that, with a mother who had a large-hearted sympathy with all sorrow, Bettina should have kept her own heart so closed to the suffering outside it; but no seed can sprout until the soil is prepared for it, and up to this period of her life the ground of Bettina's heart had been unprepared.
Now, however, all was changed. She went to balls and dinners, as her position as Lord Hurdly's wife demanded, but her heart was elsewhere. She began to economize strictly in her personal expenditure, and collected all the ready money she could lay her hands on, both from her husband's allowance and from her own small private fortune, and sent it anonymously to the Indian famine fund.
This contribution was sent in with no other identification than "From B.," written on the card which accompanied it. How could Bettina have dreamed that any living soul would connect her with it?
She was not unaware, however, that she was constantly watched by her husband. Since she had become interested in her new pursuits he observed her more closely than ever, and on the morning of the publication in the papers of the special additions to the famine fund which contained her own subscription Lord Hurdly, with apparently no reason at all, read the list aloud to her across the breakfast table.
When he came to the item "From B.," he paused and looked at her searchingly.
[Illustration: "'THE MONEY WAS PARTLY MY OWN'"]
"I thought so," said her husband, with a strange mixture of satisfaction and anger in his hard tones. "I have been expecting some such foolery as this for some time, and I am not blinded to the motive behind it. What do you care about those devils of Indian savages? What does Horace Spotswood care about them? Just as little! Enough, and too much, of my money has gone already to the prolonging of their worthless lives. If that graceless cub chooses to go on wasting money on them he can do it, but I take this occasion to inform you, Lady Hurdly--and I'd advise you to remember what I say--that I do not choose that any more of my money shall go in that direction. Do you understand?"
There was an insolence in his tone which he had never used to her before. She resented it keenly. Rising to her feet, with an instinct which forbade her to preside over the table at the other end of which he was seated as master, she said, with a tinge of anger in her quiet tones:
