or good,
that Hilda was hoping when there was nothing to hope for, and that her
own affairs were suffering from the cessation of action. She was in
the mood to entertain the basest suggestions her craft could put
forward for making marriage between Hilda and Otto impossible. But she
had not yet reached the stage at which overt acts are deliberately
planned upon the surface of the mind.

One of her girl friends ran in to gossip with her late in the afternoon
of the eighth day after Mr. Feuerstein's "parting scene" in Tompkins
Square. The talk soon drifted to Hilda, whom the other girl did not
like.

"I wonder what's become of that lover of hers--that tall fellow from up
town?" asked Miss Hunneker.

"I don't know," replied Sophie in a strained, nervous manner. "I always
hated to see Hilda go with him. No good ever comes of that sort of
thing."

"I supposed she was going to marry him."

Sophie became very uneasy indeed. "It don't often turn out that way,"
she said in a voice that was evidently concealing something--apparently
an ugly rent in the character of her friend.

Walpurga Hunneker opened her eyes wide. "You don't mean--" she
exclaimed. And, as Sophie looked still more confused,

"Well, I THOUGHT so! Gracious! Her pride must have had a fall. No
wonder she looks so disturbed."

"Poor Hilda!" said Sophie mournfully. Then she looked at Walpurga in a
frightened way as if she had been betrayed into saying too much.

Walpurga spent a busy evening among her confidantes, with the result
that the next day the neighborhood was agitated by
gossip--insinuations that grew bolder and bolder, that had sprung from
nowhere, but pointed to Hilda's sad face as proof of their truth. And
on the third day they had reached Otto's mother. Not a detail was
lacking--even the scene between Hilda and her father was one of the
several startling climaxes of the tale. Mrs. Heilig had been bitterly
resentful of Hilda's treatment of her son, and she accepted the
story--it was in such perfect harmony with her expectations from the
moment she heard of Mr. Feuerstein. In the evening, when he came home
from the shop, she told him.

"There isn't a word of truth in it, mother," he said. "I don't care
who told you, it's a lie."

"Your love makes you blind," answered the mother. "But I can see that
her vanity has led her just where vanity always leads--to destruction."

"Who told you?" he demanded.

Mrs. Heilig gave him t