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.
When she rose from her knees she put her hands to her head, and, pressing her temples hard, looked about her, as if in search of some object which might help her to the comprehension of her own mood. Then, running her fingers inside the collar of her dress, she drew out, by a slight chain, a small locket, which contained her mother’s picture and a lock of her white hair. It was a sort of talisman whose mere touch gave her a sense of comfort. She did not open it now, but held it between her palms and pressed her cheek against it, standing there alone, and presently she whispered:
“What is it, mother darling? What is it that you seem trying to say to me? Oh, if you can ever speak to me, speak now, and I will listen as I did not do when you were here beside me! There is something that I ought to do, and I am not doing it. There is something I am doing which distresses you. That is the feeling that I have. Oh, my mother—my lovely, precious, good, good mother—if I had you here, you would tell me what it is that I ought to do—and I would do it!”
She ceased her half-inarticulate whispers, and stood intensely still—almost, it seemed, as if she waited for an answer to them.
But there came no answer save the still, small voice within her soul, which had so often tried to speak before, and which even yet she could not, would not listen to.
This voice suggested to her with persistent iteration that she should even now look strictly into the evidence which had so quickly sufficed to convince her that the young and ardent lover who had wooed her so passionately, and promised her such loyalty and faith and devotion, had been false to his professions and his promises alike.
Suppose she should investigate; suppose she should get proof that she as well as he had been falsely dealt with, that he had been true in every word and thought—what then? Could she endure to keep, after that, the position of wife to the man who had so deceived and injured two beings who had believed him? Assuredly she could not. What, then, would be her alternative? To leave him and go back to the poor life at home, which her mother’s presence had justified and glorified, but which without that presence, and with the contrast of her present position in her mind, would be too intolerable a thought to contemplate.
No, she had no sufficient reason to doubt the representations that her husband had made to her. She would try to accept them more implicitly for the future, and so fight against such disturbing ideas. There were ample means of diversion within her reach. Her sojourn abroad would soon begin, and she must fight against any recurrence of her present mood of weakness.