e full.

Obed returned at last and joined them. The time fled by rapidly. Lord
Chetwynde made a move to return at about eleven o'clock, but Obed
would not allow him. He made him stay that night at the villa.

CHAPTER LXIII.

A CHANGE.

Although Lord Chetwynde was always out by day, yet he had always
returned to his rooms at night, and therefore it was a matter of
surprise to Hilda, on this eventful night, that twelve o'clock came
without any signs of his return. In her wild and ungovernable passion
her whole life had now grown to be one long internal struggle, in
which it was with difficulty that she kept down the stormy feelings
within her. This night she had grown more nervous than usual. It was
as though she had attained to the culmination of the long excitements
through which she had passed. His absence filled her with a thousand
fears. The longing of her heart grew intolerable as the hours passed
by without any signs of his return. Weary of calling to her servant
to ask if he had come back, she at last dismissed the servant to bed,
and sat herself at the door of her room, listening for the sound of
footsteps. In that watchful attitude she sat, dumb and motionless;
but the hours passed by her as she sat there, and still he came not.

Through those hours her mind was filled with a thousand fears and
fancies. Sometimes she thought that he had been assassinated. At
other times she fancied that Gualtier might have broken his promise,
and come back from London, full of vengeance, to track the man whom
he hated. These ideas, however, at length left her, and another took
possession of her, which was far more natural and probable, and which
finally became a deep and immovable conviction. She thought that Lord
Chetwynde had at last yielded to his aversion; and unwilling, from
motives of gratitude, to have any formal farewell, he had concluded
to leave her abruptly.

"Yes," she said to herself, as this thought first came to her, "that
is it. He wearies of my perpetual presence. He does not wish to
subject himself to my mean entreaties. He has cut the connection
abruptly, and is this night on his way to Leghorn to take the
steamer. He has gone to India, and left me forever. To-morrow, no
doubt, I shall get a letter acquainting me with the irrevocable step,
and bidding me an eternal farewell."

The more she thought of this the more intense her conviction became,
until at last, from the force of her own fancie