oral cowardice; but Hylda--!

She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.
Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and
rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.

Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: "I
have left him--I have left him. I have come to you."

With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her
arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which
had brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst.
"There--there it is. He goes from me to her--to that!" She thrust the
letter into the Duchess's fingers. "You knew--you knew! I saw the look
that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all
now. He left the House of Commons with her--and you knew, oh, you knew!
All the world knows--every one knew but me." She threw up her hands.
"But I've left him--I've left him, for ever."

Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a
sofa. "Darling, my darling," she said, "you must not give way. It is not
so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand."

Hylda laughed hysterically. "Not so bad as I think! Read--read it," she
said, taking the letter from the Duchess's fingers and holding it before
her face. "I found it on the staircase. I could not help but read it."
She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. "Oh, the
shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good wife to him?
Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, and I wanted to
be good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try once more--I
felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort for his sake.
It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him only hard and
selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, I thought--"

She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of
the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.

The Duchess caught the cold hands. "Yes, yes, darling, I know. I
understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know
there isn't much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would
get more than anybody else."

Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an
infinite pathos. "Oh, is it always so--in life? Is no one true? Is every
one betrayed sometime? I would die--yes, a t