For marriage had been in many ways an illumination to Bettina. The revelation of her own heart which it had given her was one which she tried hard to shut her eyes to. Twice she had consented to the idea of marrying without love. Once she had actually done this thing. Only her own heart knew what had been the consequences to her. But of one thing she had often felt glad. This was that she had not entered into a loveless marriage with a man who had loved her as she had believed Horace did at the time he had so ardently wooed her. From such a wrong as that might she be delivered!
As her thoughts now dwelt on Horace and the circumstances of their brief past together, the memory of his honest, tender, self-forgetful attitude toward her recurred to her half wistfully, in contrast to her recent experiences. Lord Hurdly's manner toward her had, in truth, changed from the very hour of their marriage. He no longer had the air of a solicitous suitor, but took at once that of the assured husband and master. It made her think what she had heard of his father and of his poor little mother's history. Not that she could fancy herself becoming, under any circumstances, a Griselda; though she could without difficulty imagine him in his father's _rôle_.
But what right had she, she asked herself, to expect to reap where she had not sown? She had married for money and position, and she had got them. What more had she expected?
Nothing more, perhaps; but in one point she had been disappointed--namely, in the power of these things to give her what she longed for, and what she could define only under the indefinite term happiness.
Bettina's talk with Parlett had set her mind to working very actively in a direction in which she had not allowed it to stray before. The thought of Horace always brought a sense of pain and spiritual discomfort to her, which she instinctively desired to shake off; and in the restless whirl of London life, which left her little time for thought of any kind, she had not much difficulty in doing so.
Now, however, she had nothing to do but to think and to become acquainted with her new possessions, the latter occupation being a strong stimulus to the former. There were many associations with Horace at Kingdon Hall. It was extraordinary how many things that he had told her in connection with this place came back to her. She was constantly recognizing pictures or persons or names with which he had made her familiar. The persons were, of course, the servants, steward, tenants, and the like, for she had seen no others. Even in walking about the lawn she had found his initials cut on trees, and the very dogs which joined her when she would go out for her walks had names on their collars that she knew. There was one, a magnificent Great Dane, which bore Horace's name there as well as his own. This dog, Comrade, she had heard Horace speak of with a special affection.