His pale face turned red with anger; he pushed me away from him.
“That man again!” he burst out. “Am I never to hear the last of him? Go away, Eunice. You are of no use here.” He took up my unfortunate page of writing and ridiculed it with a bitter laugh. “What is this fit for?” He crumpled it up in his hand and tossed it into the fire.
I ran out of the room in such a state of mortification that I hardly knew what I was about. If some hard-hearted person had come to me with a cup of poison, and had said: “Eunice, you are not fit to live any longer; take this,” I do believe I should have taken it. If I thought of anything, I thought of going back to Selina. My ill luck still pursued me; she had disappeared. I looked about in a helpless way, completely at a loss what to do next—so stupefied, I may even say, that it was some time before I noticed a little three-cornered note on the table by which I was standing. The note was addressed to me:
“EVER-DEAREST EUNEECE—I have tried to make myself useful to you, and have failed. But how can I see the sad sight of your wretchedness, and not feel the impulse to try again? I have gone to the hotel to find Philip, and to bring him back to you a penitent and faithful man. Wait for me, and hope for great things. A. hundred thousand kisses to my sweet Euneece.
“S. J.”
Wait for her, after reading that note! How could she expect it? I had only to follow her, and to find Philip. In another minute, I was on my way to the hotel.
CHAPTER XXVIII. HELENA’S DIARY.
Looking at the last entry in my Journal, I see myself anticipating that the event of to-day will decide Philip’s future and mine. This has proved prophetic. All further concealment is now at an end.
Forced to it by fate, or helped to it by chance, Eunice has made the discovery of her lover’s infidelity. “In all human probability” (as my father says in his sermons), we two sisters are enemies for life.