Yet it seemed so preposterous, so incredible, that I could not trust to my ears alone, but pushed up alongside of Robbins, where nothing could come between my vision and the lady of the alcalde’s casa.
It was not so singular that I should turn white and stand there as though suddenly stricken dumb, wondering at the world’s smallness after all, for I found myself looking upon the face that had haunted me, sleeping or waking, these two years, which I had roamed the world over in the endeavor to forget, yet without success, the fair countenance of one whom, in the fondness of my heart, I had once called my wife—my Hildegarde!
CHAPTER IV.
WORSE THAN STRANGERS NOW.
It was a decidedly unpleasant sensation that so nearly overcame me when I made this remarkable discovery in the lordly casa of the worthy alcalde.
Surprise and consternation about constituted the whole, for had I not often vowed never again to set eyes on that fair face, once madly loved, and here a perverse fate had actually taken me by the neck and forced me into her presence.
I hated her—yes, I felt certain I did—not so much because of the wrong she had done me as for the fact that, strange paradox, I could not cease to love her!
This weakness, how often I had cursed it, and then dreamed that once again my Hildegarde and I were Maying, making love among the flowers, dead to all the world, only to wake up furious with myself because I could not bruise my heart sufficiently to stamp out her false image.
And there I was looking upon the same maddening beauty that had once made a fool of me. By Heaven! she was prettier than ever and I ground my teeth with rage when I felt my miserable traitor heart throbbing like a triphammer against my ribs.
She knew me, too, despite the fact that I had grown a mustache and Vandyke beard since last we parted, and looked ten years older.