re of the fact
that he has suffered no injury, however indirectly, through me."

She had been able to control both her voice and expression
entirely--a fact on which she fervently congratulated herself.

"You may feel quite at ease on that score, I assure you," Lord Hurdly
answered, in his cold, incisive tones. "He received the money, and
has probably used it for the furtherance of these ridiculous and
sentimental schemes of his. This should give you the gratifying
assurance that he has been bettered, and not worsted, by reason of
his connection with you."

The tone in which he spoke was galling to Bettina, but she made no
answer, though no words which she could have spoken would have
conveyed a greater resentment of his speech than did her disdainful
silence. She made a motion to move away, but he deliberately placed
himself in front of her, saying, in the same hard tone:

"It occurred to me, from time to time while we were abroad, that you
were rather eager in gleaning information about the person we have
been speaking of, and I want to tell you that what has been evident
to me may be evident to others. You may not care how the thing
looks, but as I do, perhaps you will be more careful in the future."

His use of the word "eager" in connection with her attitude in this
affair gave Bettina swift offence, and this feeling was heightened by
the suggestion that she had made herself liable to criticism on such
a subject.

"You cannot, I think," she answered, in a tone of proud resentment,
"be more careful than I am that I shall act with propriety as your
wife. Since there is so little besides the form to be complied with,
I see the greater necessity for punctiliousness in observing that.
The rebuke you have just given me is utterly unmerited, and I shall
therefore not change my manner of conducting myself in any
particular."

"Perhaps you will think better of that decision, and will oblige me
by not making yourself conspicuous by holding your breath to listen
whenever that person chances to be mentioned. You are not unlikely to
hear him alluded to during the coming season, as he has been making a
bid for popularity at his new post by taking up the matter of the
famine, and," he added with a sneering smile, "relieving it with the
money I paid him."

The word cut into Bettina's heart.

"Paid him?" she said, scrutinizing him with a glance before which
even his hard eyes faltered. "Paid him for what?"

"Oh, for k