This looked very serious indeed to the friends who had hoped against all hope.
Mrs. Cramer was anxious that none of her companions should behold her, she was so terribly altered. She could not bear the criticisms which she knew her appearance would be sure to occasion. But Hildegarde had stoutly declared she would not go abroad.
"I want to die in my native land," pleaded the girl, piteously.
She sought her couch early, because her mother was anxious about her; but her mother did not know that she paced the floor until the gray dawn.
Now her mother hastened the preparations for the trip abroad.
"She is young, and a change of air and scene will surely bring about forgetfulness," thought Mrs. Cramer.
It was well for her that she could not foresee what was to happen in the near future.
[CHAPTER XXX.]
We must return to Ida May, dear reader, and picture to you the awful woe she experienced as she turned from Hildegarde, saying. "Let me go away out of your lives; if my life could atone for what I have done, I would give it."