"Have you not solved it?"
"Certainly not. Mine, after all, are merely conjectures. Much more remains to be done. In the first place, I must find out something about Lady Chetwynde. For months I have tried, but in vain. I have ventured as far as I dared to question the people about here. Once I hinted to Mrs. Hart something about the elopement, and she turned upon me with that in her eyes which would have turned an ordinary mortal into stone. Fortunately for me, I bore it, and survived. But since that unfortunate question she shuns me more than ever. The other servants know nothing, or else they will reveal nothing. Nothing, in fact, can be discovered here. The mystery is yet to be explained, and the explanation must be sought elsewhere."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"Have you thought of any thing? You must have, or you would not have communicated with me. There is some work which you wish me to do. You have thought about it, and have determined it. What is it? Is it to go to America? Shall I hunt up Obed Chute? Shall I search through the convents till I find that Sister who once was Lady Chetwynde? Tell me. If you say so I will go."
Hilda mused; then she spoke, as though rather to herself than to her companion.
"I don't know. I have no plans--no definite aim, beyond a desire to find out what it all means, and what there is in it. What can I do? What could I do if I found out all? I really do not know. If General Pomeroy were alive, it might be possible to extort from him a confession of his crimes, and make them known to the world."
"If General Pomeroy were alive," interrupted Gualtier, "and were to confess all his crimes, what good would that do?"
"What good?" cried Hilda, in a tone of far greater vehemence and passion than any which had yet escaped her. "What good? Humiliation, sorrow, shame, anguish, for his daughter! It is not on his head that I wish these to descend, but on hers. You look surprised. You wonder why? I will not tell you--not now, at least. It is not because she is passionate and disagreeable; that is a trifle, and besides she has changed from that; it is not because she ever injured me--she never injured me; she loves me; but"--and Hilda's brow grew dark, and her eyes flashed as she spoke--"there are other reasons, deeper than all this--reasons which I will not divulge even to you, but which yet are sufficient to make me long and yearn and crave for some opportunity to bring down her proud head into the very dust."
"And that opportunity shall be yours," cried Gualtier, vehemently. "To do this it is only necessary to find out the whole truth. I will find it out. I will search over all England and all America till I discover all that you want to know. General Pomeroy is dead. What matter? He is nothing to you. But she lives, and is a mark for your vengeance."