One means to this end was the reading of newspapers, and this occupation now absorbed a part of every morning. In this way she occasionally came upon Horace Spotswood's name, and when she did, a strange agitation would possess her. She could not quite shake off an influence which this man's life seemed to exert upon hers. Lord Hurdly would have had her believe that she had bestowed a great benefit upon Horace, as it was through her that he was in the possession of his present independent fortune, but there was no voice so strong as the one in her own heart which told her that she had wronged him. Here and there she had picked up the impressions of many different people concerning this young diplomatist, and unquestionably the aggregated effect was one of admiration. The brief notices of him which she read in the papers confirmed this impression of him. He was doing well, for a man of his years, in diplomacy, and he was doing more than well in the work he had undertaken for the relief of the famine-stricken population near him.
It was Horace's interest in this cause which had given rise to Bettina's interest in it, and she began to read eagerly all that she could find on the subject. As a result her heart was, for the first time in her life, awakened to an intense perception of the suffering of the world at large. It was a new emotion to her, and one which throbbed through all her consciousness with a power which changed her individuality even to herself. She began to think for the first time of the utter recklessness with which she had been spending the large sums of money which Lord Hurdly placed at her disposal. Her expenditure of these sums heretofore had met with his entire approval, as she could never have too rich a wardrobe to please him. It was all a part of his own glory and importance, and he never asked a question as to how the money went.
But now the tide within Bettina's heart had turned. As she read of the sufferings of these starving people, the thought of her own excess of luxuriousness sickened her. The more she felt within her soul that nameless sadness which no outside help could relieve, the more she felt it urgent upon her to relieve the wants of others when this assuagement lay within her actual power.