CHAPTER XXIX.

"Yes; where she goes, I must follow," repeated Eugene Mallard, in a voice husky with emotion, "for she is my wife!"

The words fell upon Hildegarde's ears with a dreadful shock. It was not until then that she realized her lover was separated from her.

She saw him take Ida May's hand and lead her slowly out of the house.

[127]

In the years that followed she wondered that the sight did not kill her.

When the door closed after them, Hildegarde stood for a moment stunned, with a white, awful pallor on her face.

Miss Fernly watched her in silence.

Was Hildegarde going mad? If she would only cry out, utter some word. But no; only that awful silence. "Hildegarde," said Miss Fernly, approaching her tremblingly, "what can I say, what can I do, to repair the terrible wrong I have done you?"

"The only thing you can do is to kill me," answered the girl, in a hoarse, unnatural voice.

"Oh, my niece! my precious niece, do not say that!" replied Miss Fernly, beside herself with grief. "You will break my heart!"

"Yours is not the only one that will be broken," returned Hildegarde.

Miss Fernly attempted to approach her, but Hildegarde drew back in loathing.

"Do not come near me!" she cried, with flashing eyes, "lest I forget who you are, and strike you dead at my feet!"

With a quick motion, Hildegarde turned, and without another word, flew up the staircase and up to her own boudoir, and closed the door securely after her.

"Let me realize it," she murmured. "A few hours ago I was the happiest girl the world held; now I cry out to Heaven to end my life."

She crept up to the mirror, and she stood before it, tall, slender, and erect in the dignity of her own despair, her face white, her dark eyes dark with sorrow.

"Can that be me?" she murmured, crossing her hands over her breast. But the figure reflected gave back no answer.

"He has gone out of my life. What am I to do?" she murmured. "One can never be sure of anything in this world. He left me only a few hours ago, and there was nothing between us but love. I can not believe[128] it! It is some awful dream from which I shall presently awake!"

She wrung her hands wildly; she tore her beautiful dark hair; she was as one mad with anguish. Then she thought of Ida May, and she clinched her hands.

Some one knocked at the door

"Let me in, Hildegarde!" cried her mother, anxiously.

"No!" answered the girl. "I can not—do not ask me. Only leave me here alone. The sight of human faces, the sound of human voices, would drive me mad!"

All in vain the mother pleaded. Suddenly she heard a fall, and when one of the servants whom Mrs. Cramer had summoned burst open the door, she found Hildegarde lying face downward on the velvet carpet.

Miss Fernly had told her sister all, made a clean breast of the whole affair. But Hildegarde's mother did not curse her, as she feared she might do. She only looked at her sister with horror-stricken eyes.

For a fortnight Hildegarde lay on the bed where they had placed her.

The doctor had worked over her for hours.

"She is young," he said to the heart-broken mother, "and while there is life there is hope."

When she arose from her bed, every one was startled at the change in her. She made no complaint, even to Miss Fernly, who hovered around her in an agony more pitiful than words can describe.

Hildegarde was like one on whom the shadow of death had fallen. She grew thin and white; the light was gone from her beautiful eyes, the color from her beautiful face.

No smile, no sound of laughter, came to the pale lips. If her mother, whose heart ached over her beloved child, tried to cheer her, she had but one answer for her, and it was:

"I shall die soon, my heart is slowly bleeding to death."

Then came the announcement that Hildegarde was[129] going abroad. But the paper did not state how long she would remain.

This looked very serious indeed to the friends who had hoped against all hope.

Mrs. Cramer was anxious that none of her companions should behold her, she was so terribly altered. She could not bear the criticisms which she knew her appearance would be sure to occasion. But Hildegarde had stoutly declared she would not go abroad.

"I want to die in my native land," pleaded the girl, piteously.

She sought her couch early, because her mother was anxious about her; but her mother did not know that she paced the floor until the gray dawn.

Now her mother hastened the preparations for the trip abroad.

"She is young, and a change of air and scene will surely bring about forgetfulness," thought Mrs. Cramer.

It was well for her that she could not foresee what was to happen in the near future.