CHAPTER XLVI.
HALT!
It was still early when Hildegarde and Hamilton reached Mayence; so early, that, after lingering over their breakfast an unusually long time, the latter said he would make some inquiries about the Baroness Waldorf, and Hildegarde could go to her at a later hour. After a very short absence he returned, and throwing himself into a chair, exclaimed, “Well, certainly this is the most unaccountable conduct!”
“What is the matter?” asked Hildegarde, turning very pale, “has she left Mayence too?”
“Yes—gone again; and without leaving any message for you!”
“There must be some extraordinary mistake or confusion either on her part or Hortense’s! I could almost agree with Count Zedwitz, and think she was purposely avoiding me, if I had not read the letters which she wrote—her hopes that we should be long together—her regrets that I was not a few years older—her entreaties that Hortense would not let me leave Munich until she had found some person to take charge of me: and now to leave me to wander about after her in this way! So apparently to forget my existence! It is quite incomprehensible!”
“She has gone to Waldorf,” said Hamilton, “and a—Waldorf is not far from Coblentz.”
“You surely would not advise me to pursue her farther!” cried Hildegarde, indignantly.
“Oh, no! I have advised, and still advise you to go home.”
“And yet I shall make one effort more, though most unwillingly,” said Hildegarde; “I should be ashamed to go home after a wild-goose chase of this kind; I must know at least what to say to my relations. Suppose I were to write to the Baroness, and await her answer here? That will—that must explain everything.”
“Write,” said Hamilton, “and we can take it to the post ourselves, when we go out with a valet de place, who must show us everything worth seeing. I dare say we can spend two or three days very pleasantly here.”