“But we are both without fortune,” said Hildegarde.
“I could quit the army. There are many situations which I could obtain. We should be poor, indeed, very poor; but what is poverty when—— Oh! Hildegarde, has this consideration caused your coldness, or are you—— What a fool I am!” he exclaimed, passionately. “She treats me like a madman from whom she would escape without witnessing a paroxysm! Go, you have tortured me—deliberately—most horribly. Go, I would hate you if I could!”
Hildegarde began slowly to ascend the stairs; as she turned to the next flight an unusual sound made her look downwards, and she perceived her cousin vainly endeavouring to suppress the fearful emotion which agitated his whole frame. A man’s tears are a phenomenon too rare to be seen unmoved. Hildegarde stopped, and held out her hand. “Oscar, dear Oscar, what I said was not in heartlessness, but in the hope of convincing you of the utter impossibility of our ever being more to each other than cousins. Think of your solemn engagement to Marie—of your promises to your father. Remember that no situation you could ever obtain would enable you to pay your debts!”
“True—most true. I was dreaming just now,” said Raimund, with forced composure. “I am sorry to have kept you so long here—in the cold. Go, Mr. Hamilton is waiting for you!”
“He is not. I shall most probably not see him until evening.”
Raimund looked up, smiled mournfully, and then rushed down the stairs.
A minute later Hildegarde was in her room; her cloak and boa almost suffocated her, and she shook them off impatiently, sank on a chair, and murmured: “What shall I do? What ought I to do? Oscar will quarrel with him—kill him, and I shall be the cause. He must leave Munich—leave us, and return to England.” Here she sprang from her chair, and walked up and down the room for a few minutes. “Is there, then, no other way of keeping him out of danger? Suppose he could be induced to go to the Z—’s? He said he intended to visit them. If he only could go until after Oscar’s marriage? A fortnight—only two weeks, and all danger would be over! I must speak to him, even if he insists on knowing everything. I wonder if he is in the drawing-room?”
He was not, nor in the school-room, and she had not the courage to seek him in his apartment. She hoped to find an opportunity in the course of the next day, although with female quickness she had already observed that he no longer sought to be alone with her, or in any way to occupy her attention. Hamilton’s motives were honourable, but he could scarcely have chosen a more judicious mode of conduct in order to facilitate their intercourse; it had already convinced Mr. Rosenberg of his indifference to his daughter just when he had begun to entertain suspicions to the contrary, and confirmed Madame Rosenberg in the idea that Hamilton actually disliked her.
After wandering about the house for some time, Hildegarde returned to her room, and endeavoured to arrange her thoughts, and her balls of coloured worsted and silks, until the return of her family. They came late, and talked loudly and gayly on their arrival. When Crescenz entered the room, she immediately exclaimed, “Oh! Hildegarde, we have had such a pleasant party—such a number of people, and such good coffee! and the Bergers. Oh dear, I was so sorry that you and——but I had almost forgotten, mamma says you must make tea directly for Mr. Hamilton, he is going to the theatre, there is an opera, and he wishes to hear the overture.”
Hildegarde pushed back her work-frame, and left the room to seek the breakfast service of highly gilt china, which Madame Rosenberg had received as a wedding-present, and which, though certainly intended by the donor to have been “kept for show,” she had latterly appropriated to Hamilton’s use, whenever he drank tea alone, and this was generally the case the evenings he went to the theatre. When she carried it to the drawing-room, she found her father, mother, and Major Stultz with him, and as she poured out the weak beverage, and arranged the plate of bread and butter, her mother continued speaking—“We thought you did not choose to hear us—but then what motive could you have?”