"Do not come near me!" she cried, with flashing eyes, "lest I forget who you are, and strike you dead at my feet!"
With a quick motion, Hildegarde turned, and without another word, flew up the staircase and up to her own boudoir, and closed the door securely after her.
"Let me realize it," she murmured. "A few hours ago I was the happiest girl the world held; now I cry out to Heaven to end my life."
She crept up to the mirror, and she stood before it, tall, slender, and erect in the dignity of her own despair, her face white, her dark eyes dark with sorrow.
"Can that be me?" she murmured, crossing her hands over her breast. But the figure reflected gave back no answer.
"He has gone out of my life. What am I to do?" she murmured. "One can never be sure of anything in this world. He left me only a few hours ago, and there was nothing between us but love. I can not believe it! It is some awful dream from which I shall presently awake!"
She wrung her hands wildly; she tore her beautiful dark hair; she was as one mad with anguish. Then she thought of Ida May, and she clinched her hands.
Some one knocked at the door
"Let me in, Hildegarde!" cried her mother, anxiously.
"No!" answered the girl. "I can not—do not ask me. Only leave me here alone. The sight of human faces, the sound of human voices, would drive me mad!"