ectures. Much more
remains to be done. In the first place, I must find out something
about Lady Chetwynde. For months I have tried, but in vain. I have
ventured as far as I dared to question the people about here. Once I
hinted to Mrs. Hart something about the elopement, and she turned
upon me with that in her eyes which would have turned an ordinary
mortal into stone. Fortunately for me, I bore it, and survived. But
since that unfortunate question she shuns me more than ever. The
other servants know nothing, or else they will reveal nothing.
Nothing, in fact, can be discovered here. The mystery is yet to be
explained, and the explanation must be sought elsewhere."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"Have you thought of any thing? You must have, or you would not have
communicated with me. There is some work which you wish me to do. You
have thought about it, and have determined it. What is it? Is it to
go to America? Shall I hunt up Obed Chute? Shall I search through the
convents till I find that Sister who once was Lady Chetwynde? Tell
me. If you say so I will go."

Hilda mused; then she spoke, as though rather to herself than to her
companion.

"I don't know. I have no plans--no definite aim, beyond a desire to
find out what it all means, and what there is in it. What can I do?
What could I do if I found out all? I really do not know. If General
Pomeroy were alive, it might be possible to extort from him a
confession of his crimes, and make them known to the world."

"If General Pomeroy were alive," interrupted Gualtier, "and were to
confess all his crimes, what good would that do?"

"What good?" cried Hilda, in a tone of far greater vehemence and
passion than any which had yet escaped her. "What good? Humiliation,
sorrow, shame, anguish, for his daughter! It is not on his head that
I wish these to descend, but on hers. You look surprised. You wonder
why? I will not tell you--not now, at least. It is not because she is
passionate and disagreeable; that is a trifle, and besides she has
changed from that; it is not because she ever injured me--she never
injured me; she loves me; but"--and Hilda's brow grew dark, and her
eyes flashed as she spoke--"there are other reasons, deeper than all
this--reasons which I will not divulge even to you, but which yet are
sufficient to make me long and yearn and crave for some opportunity
to bring down her proud head into the very dust."

"And that opportunity shall be yours," crie