to administer to another, I dared also to administer to
myself? You surely must remember how weak all those menaces of yours
proved when you tried to coerce me again as you had done once before.
You must know the reason why they were so powerless. It was because
to me all life, and all the honors and pleasures of life, had grown
to be nothing without that one aim after which I was seeking. Do you
not understand yet?"

"My God!" was Gualtier's reply, "how you love that man!" These words
burst forth involuntarily, as he looked at her in the anguish of his
despair.

Hilda's eyes fastened themselves on his, and looked at him out of the
depths of a despair which was deeper than his own--a despair which
had now made life valueless.

"You can not--you will not," exclaimed Gualtier, passionately.

"I can," said Hilda, "and it is very possible that I will."

"You do not know what it is that you speak about."

"I am not afraid of death," said Hilda, coldly, "if that is what you
mean. It can not be worse than this life of mine."

"But you do not understand what it means," said Gualtier. "I am not
speaking of the mere act itself, but of its consequences. Picture to
yourself Lord Chetwynde exulting over this, and seeing that hated
obstacle removed which kept him from his perfect happiness. You die,
and you leave him to pursue uninterrupted the joy that he has with
his paramour. Can you face such a thought as that? Would not this
woman rejoice at hearing of such a thing? Do you wish to add to their
happiness? Are you so sublimely self-sacrificing that you will die to
make Lord Chetwynde happy in his love?"

"How can he be happy in his love?" said Hilda. "She is married."

"She may not be. You only conjecture that. It may be her father whom
she guards against, or her guardian. Obed Chute is no doubt the
man--either her father or guardian, and Lord Chetwynde has to guard
against suspicion. But what then? If you die, can he not find some
other, and solace himself in her smiles, and in the wealth that will
now be all his own?"

These words stung Hilda to the quick, and she sat silent and
thoughtful. To die so as to get rid of trouble was one thing, but a
death which should have such consequences as these was a very
different thing. Singularly enough, she had never thought of this
before. And now, when the thought came, it was intolerable. It
produced within her a new revolution of feeling, and turned her
thoughts away from t