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Updated: June 14, 2025
She dared not trust herself to this, instinctively as she longed for it. It was, therefore, with positive terror in her breast that she heard one morning from Nora that Lord Hurdly was in the house, having come down by train from London. "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.
"Have you any idea who I am?" she said. "It suffices me to know what you are." "Ah! I do not understand," she said, puzzled. "You have come upon me without ceremony, madam," said Lord Hurdly, with a slightly old-fashioned pomposity in his polished manner, "and I may therefore ask you to excuse an absence of ceremony in me in alluding to the impression which you have made upon me.
Horace Spotswood, the wife of a diplomat at the Russian court, and ultimately I shall be Lady Hurdly, with a London mansion, several country places, and one of the greatest positions in English society." "My child, my poor child!" said the mother, in a tone of distress, "what is to be the end of your inordinate ambition for the things of the world?
I am aware that the rupture of your engagement of marriage to Mr. Horace Spotswood was caused chiefly by a letter shown you by Lord Hurdly, and purporting to come from an altogether trustworthy source a man who was on the spot and who was a personal friend of his. I was that man. I was on the spot because I was sent there by Lord Hurdly for the purpose of writing this letter.
The telegrams sent to the lawyers, the rector, and others had been signed "Hurdly." Several of these she had seen. It seemed to her, therefore, a very delicate instinct which had caused him to refrain from the use of her husband's name in addressing her. He had always been delicate in his intuitions and expressions, or at least so it had seemed.
Keener than this surprise, however, was her sense of humiliation at the implacable offence which Lord Hurdly had taken at his heir's proposed marriage with herself. That he had wished Horace to marry she knew; it was therefore the woman whom he had chosen that Lord Hurdly resented. She rose to her feet, feeling herself giddy, and knowing that she was white with agitation.
"You have been looking at this subject from your own point of view," she said, "and perhaps naturally. I must, however, think of an aspect of the case in which you have no interest. I am absolutely alone in the world, and if, for your cousin's sake, I made this sacrifice " In spite of herself her voice faltered. Lord Hurdly drew his chair a little nearer to her.
He had shifted his position from Russia to India about the time of his cousin's marriage, and Bettina never heard his name mentioned, nor did she ever utter it. After the London season was over, Lord and Lady Hurdly had moved from their town-house to the family seat, Kingdon Hall.
Lord Hurdly had never had it in his power to wound and anger him as Bettina could. So, when he got transferred from St. Petersburg to Simla, it was with the instinct of removing himself as far as possible from Bettina. Of the other he scarcely thought.
"Lord Hurdly," she said again, and this time her voice had gained in steadiness, until it sounded mechanical and hard. "I wish to express to you," she said, when he had drawn a little nearer, "my thanks for your kind intentions concerning me. I can only repeat, however, that my decision is quite fixed, and that I shall carry out the plans I have made known to you. Do not urge me further.
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