“Would that it had been!” said Hildegarde. “I could at least have regretted him as a near relation, and felt pity for his untimely end.”
“And do you not feel this?” asked Hamilton.
“No,” answered Hildegarde, sternly. “In recalling calmly his words and actions this night, I find him wholly unworthy of esteem. My recollection of him, now stained with blood, is hideous, most horrible.” She shuddered while she spoke, and then walked down the dark passage without looking at Hamilton, who held his door open until she had entered her room.
CHAPTER XXXI.
WHERE IS THE BRIDEGROOM?
Hamilton’s slumbers were disturbed by confused dreams of Hildegarde and Raimund; but towards morning he fell into a heavy sleep, from which he was awakened by the return of Mr. Rosenberg, his wife and children; the latter, probably to indemnify themselves for their forced good behaviour during their absence, now scampered riotously up and down the corridor, blowing little wooden trumpets, which had been given them by their grandfather just before they had left him.
When Hamilton was dressed, he found the whole family assembled at breakfast, all in high spirits. Crescenz sprang to meet him in her bridesmaid’s dress, looking so pretty that Major Stultz’s laboured compliments were for once not only pardonable, but even allowable.
“Only think!” she exclaimed, “Hildegarde does not like being bridesmaid, though Marie is much more her friend than mine! She says she has got a headache, and a cold.”
“I knew,” observed Madame Lustig, “I knew she would catch cold, when I saw her turning the ice-cream yesterday. I ought not to have permitted it.”
“The cold is not of much importance,” observed Madame Rosenberg; “I rather think she dislikes putting on a thin white muslin dress in the morning.”