Sobbing wildly, Ida caught at the hem of Hildegarde's dress.
"Auntie!" cried Hildegarde, turning to her relative, "I do not care to listen to anything this—this person has to say. The very air she breathes stifles me. Eugene!" she cried, springing to her lover's side, "take me in to the drawing-room. I—I can not talk to this young girl."
He did not clasp her in his arms, though he made a movement to do so. His arms fell to his sides, and his head drooped to his breast.
He was enduring torture so acute that many a man would have fainted under the strain of it.
Hildegarde looked up into his face in wonder.
"Eugene, my darling!" she cried "are you ill? Tell me! Something terrible must be the matter! Why do you not speak?"
In that instant she seemed to forget the presence of everybody, save the lover who had parted from her a few hours since, and who was now standing before her so greatly changed.
She looked from one to the other in consternation.
"Something has happened," she said. "Why do you keep me in suspense?"
"I am trying to tell you," sobbed Ida May, "but you will not listen."