All in vain the mother pleaded. Suddenly she heard a fall, and when one of the servants whom Mrs. Cramer had summoned burst open the door, she found Hildegarde lying face downward on the velvet carpet.
Miss Fernly had told her sister all, made a clean breast of the whole affair. But Hildegarde's mother did not curse her, as she feared she might do. She only looked at her sister with horror-stricken eyes.
For a fortnight Hildegarde lay on the bed where they had placed her.
The doctor had worked over her for hours.
"She is young," he said to the heart-broken mother, "and while there is life there is hope."
When she arose from her bed, every one was startled at the change in her. She made no complaint, even to Miss Fernly, who hovered around her in an agony more pitiful than words can describe.
Hildegarde was like one on whom the shadow of death had fallen. She grew thin and white; the light was gone from her beautiful eyes, the color from her beautiful face.
No smile, no sound of laughter, came to the pale lips. If her mother, whose heart ached over her beloved child, tried to cheer her, she had but one answer for her, and it was:
"I shall die soon, my heart is slowly bleeding to death."
Then came the announcement that Hildegarde was going abroad. But the paper did not state how long she would remain.