She saw a slightly hardened look come into his face, but it quickly gave way to a gentler one.
“No matter what it is, if you have suffered and repented, the best sympathy of my heart is yours.”
“You will regard it as a confidence—a sacred confidence?” said Bettina. “I could only tell you with that understanding. I know that a clergyman is accustomed to keeping the secrets of his people, and I could not say a word unless I were sure that this thing would rest forever between you and me.”
“‘TRULY, MY CHILD, IT IS A WRETCHED STORY’”
Wishing to soothe her in every possible way, the rector gave her his promise to keep sacred what she might tell him; and thus reassured, poor Bettina opened her heart. The relief of it was so exquisite and the experience was so rare, that she told it all with the abandonment of a child at its mother’s knee, and with a degree of self-accusation that might well have disarmed condemnation, as indeed it did.
Up to the time of her meeting with Horace in England, she kept back nothing, describing with absolute truth her feelings as well as her conduct. When she had reached that point, however, a sense of instinctive reserve came to her, and a few brief sentences described what had happened since.
At the end of her recital she paused, looking eagerly into the rector’s face, as if she both hoped and feared what he might say.
“Truly, my child, it is a wretched story,” he began, as if a little careful in the choosing of his words, “but the knowledge of it has deepened instead of lessened my sympathy for you. Your fault has been very great, but so is your sense of compunction; and as far as suffering can expiate, surely you have done much to atone. My own knowledge of the character of the late Lord Hurdly was such that I cannot pretend to be greatly surprised at what you have told me concerning him. I regret to say it, but justice must be done to the living as well as to the dead. The present Lord Hurdly will prove, I trust and believe, an honor to the name. My intercourse with him has been comparatively limited, but no young man has ever inspired me with a stronger sense of confidence. So much do I feel this that I will confess to a strong desire that he should know upon what ground you acted toward him as you did. I have given my word to you, however, and perhaps it is as well. That poor man so lately gone to his account has stains enough upon his memory without this added one. And when I think of Horace—what he has suffered through the treachery of his kinsman—I feel that it is perhaps kindest to him also to leave this dark secret in the oblivion which buries it in our two hearts.”