He had not heard what was said. Betty had always been impulsive, he thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble—they all came to her, and kept her poor.
"Go to bed, Dick," the Duchess said to him, and hurried from the room. She did not hesitate now. Windlehurst had put the matter in the right way. Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda—!
She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit. Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.
Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: "I have left him—I have left him. I have come to you."
With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which had brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst. "There—there it is. He goes from me to her—to that!" She thrust the letter into the Duchess's fingers. "You knew—you knew! I saw the look that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all now. He left the House of Commons with her—and you knew, oh, you knew! All the world knows—every one knew but me." She threw up her hands. "But I've left him—I've left him, for ever."
Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a sofa. "Darling, my darling," she said, "you must not give way. It is not so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand."
Hylda laughed hysterically. "Not so bad as I think! Read—read it," she said, taking the letter from the Duchess's fingers and holding it before her face. "I found it on the staircase. I could not help but read it." She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. "Oh, the shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good wife to him? Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, and I wanted to be good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try once more—I felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort for his sake. It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him only hard and selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, I thought—"
She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.
The Duchess caught the cold hands. "Yes, yes, darling, I know. I understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know there isn't much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would get more than anybody else."
Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an infinite pathos. "Oh, is it always so—in life? Is no one true? Is every one betrayed sometime? I would die—yes, a thousand times yes, I would rather die than bear this. What do I care for life—it has cheated me! I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in word and deed even when I suffered most, even when—"