By the merest chance the hapless young wife had come across the letter that Miss Fernly had written to Eugene Mallard. It had fallen from his pocket when he was looking over some papers on the porch one day.
Passing by soon after, Ida saw the paper lying there, picked it up, and opened it. There, while the sun shone and the birds sung, she read it through, and the wonder was that she did not die then and there.
[CHAPTER XLVII.]
From the moment that Ida had learned through Miss Fernly's letter how Hildegarde Cramer had mourned for her lover, the young wife's life had become very unhappy.
She knew well that she stood between Hildegarde Cramer and her happiness. She had done her best to die, but Heaven had not so willed it.
The pity of it was that her love for Eugene Mallard had increased a hundred fold. It was driving her to madness.
"Oh, if it were all ended!" she cried aloud. "Better anything than this awful despair!"
No one heard her. There was no one near to hear what she moaned out to the brook that kept so many secrets.
She heard a crash in the branches near by—a slight crash, but she started. It was only a bird that had fallen from its nest in the tree overhead, she told herself.