"What made her break down, after such glorious promise? Why, after she sang before my friends here, as fresh as a lark, and drove them all so wild that I, Olympia, was almost overlooked? There never were such expectations; but see how it ended—a total failure, and brain fever."
"Did you say brain fever?"
The young man scarcely spoke above a breath.
"Yes, it is on the brain, or the nerves, I am not quite sure which; but the doctors look terribly grave when I ask them about her, and speak as if she would die."
"Would to God she might die!" exclaimed the young man, trembling from head to foot with a burst of agitation that would not be suppressed longer.
"What—What?" exclaimed Olympia, starting back in affright. The glass fell from her hold, and a rivulet of amber-hued wine flashed along the snow of the table-cloth while she sat gazing upon the young lord.
"Excuse me; I was thinking of something else," he said, with a strong effort of self-control. "May I presume on your favor, and steal away, now? The rest will not miss me, I think."
Olympia nodded her head hastily. The spilled wine was dripping on her dress, so she started up, and Lord Hilton withdrew while she was shaking the drops from its silken folds, and creating general confusion by her laughing outcries.
Lord Hilton looked back as he crossed the passage, and shuddered at the picture of riotous luxury that supper-table presented.
"And she was among them, in a scene like that," he said, as the door closed after him.