As he turned he encountered the eyes of Hilda, which were fixed on him--stern, wrathful, menacing.
"You have begun it!" she repeated. "It was my work--not yours. I order you to desist, and you must obey. You can not do any thing else. To go on is impossible, if I stand between you and him. Only one thing is left for you, and that is to obey me, and assist me as before."
"Obey you!" said Gualtier, with a cold and almost ferocious glance. "The time for obedience I think is past. That much you ought to know. And what is it that you ask? What? To thrust from me the dearest hope of my life, and just as it was reaching fruition."
Hilda's eyes were fastened on Gualtier as he said these words. The scorn with which he disowned any obedience, the confidence with which he spoke of that renunciation of his former subordination, were but ill in accordance with those words with which he expressed his "dearest hope."
"Dearest hope!" said Hilda--"fruition! If you knew any thing, you would know that the time for that is rapidly passing, and only your prompt obedience and assistance will benefit you now."
"Pardon me," said Gualtier, hastily; "I forgot myself in my excitement. But you ask impossible things. I can not help you here. The obstacle between you and me was nearly removed--and you ask me to replace it."
"Obstacle!" said Hilda, in scorn. "Is it thus that you mention _him_?" In her weakness her wrath and indignation burst forth. "That man whom you call an obstacle is one for whose sake I have dragged myself over hundreds of miles; for whom I am now ready to lay down my life. Do not wonder. Do not question me. Call it passion--madness--any thing--but do not attempt to thwart me. Speak now. Will you help me or not?"
"Help you!" cried Gualtier, bitterly, "help you! to what? to do that which will destroy my last hope--and after I have extorted from you your promise! Ask me any thing else."
"I want nothing else."
"You may yet want my aid."