f the situation, and Hilda's
manner acknowledged it.

Across the room the others were talking together, though von Rittenheim
was not without preoccupation.

"You don't seem glad to see me," von Sternburg said, in German.

Hilda ignored his opening.

"I suppose you have told Friedrich everything," she said at once, in a
tone dull with the chagrin of defeated hope.

"Yes," replied von Sternburg, "I think I have."

"Then I hate you!"

She sat erect, and an angry flush colored her cheeks.

"No doubt."

"You have destroyed the only chance of happiness I ever expect to
have."

"Do you deserve happiness?"

"Won't you grant me that mercy?"

"Have you ever shown mercy?"

As her regret over the failure of her plans had been swallowed up in
resentment at the doer of the mischief, so her passion was swept away
by a wave of self-pity. She turned to him with fierce reproach.

"You think I am so heartless as to be outside of the needs of other
women, don't you?"

"I must confess that you are the only one of your kind in my
experience."

Hilda was maddened at his irony.

"Can you not believe that I am eager to be happy in the way that other
women are? That I _long_ to feel the love that comes to every one but
me?"

"No,--pardon me,--I cannot believe that."

"Insolent! I don't know why I try to justify myself to you. But listen.
Can you imagine what it is to be without a heart? To make men love you
for the sport of it, and not to care when they kill themselves for your
sake,--truly _not to care_? And at the same time to have another part
of yourself wanting to care,--yearning to feel pity?"

"Is that dual nature yours?"

"You are sneering. You always have thought of me as rejoicing in
cruelty, I suppose."

"Certainly as indifferent to suffering."

"You have believed that I thought myself normal; that I was unconscious
of my want of feeling."

"I never observed any recognition of your temperament evidenced in your
conduct."

"But it is true, Baron. I swear to you that I know my need so well, so
painfully well, that on the chance of Friedrich's saving me from all
that it means, I was willing to force him to poverty, and to separate
him from all that he held dear."

"I don't doubt it, though I don't see how you expected that to help
you."

"I thought that, if I could have him near me always, perhaps my heart
might wake within me. I do not love him, but he is the only man I ever
met whose every thoug