he had now to struggle incessantly against that new tenderness which
had sprung up unbidden within her. She caught herself looking forward
wistfully every day to the time when she could meet him at the table
and hear his voice, which, even in its cold, constrained tones, was
enough for her happiness. It was in vain that she reproached and even
cursed herself for her weakness. The weakness none the less existed;
and all her life seemed now to centre around this man, who hated her.
Into a position like this she had never imagined that she could
possibly be brought. All her cunning and all her resources were
useless here. This man seemed so completely beyond her control that
any effort to win him to her seemed useless. He believed her to be
his wife, he believed himself bound by honor to secure her happiness,
and yet his abhorrence of her was so strong that he never made any
effort to gain her for himself. Now Hilda saw with bitterness that
she had gone too far, and that her plans and her plots were recoiling
upon her own head. They had been too successful. The sin of Lord
Chetwynde's wife had in his eyes proved unpardonable.

Hilda's whole life now became a series of alternate struggles against
her own heart, and longings after another who was worse than
indifferent to her. Her own miserable weakness, so unexpected, and
yet so complete and hopeless, filled her at once with anger and
dismay. To find all her thoughts both by day and night filled with
this one image was at once mortifying and terrible. The very
intensity of her feelings, which would not stop short at death itself
to gain their object, now made her own sufferings all the greater.
Every thing else was forgotten except this one absorbing desire; and
her complicated schemes and far-reaching plans were thrust away. They
had lost their interest. Henceforth all were reduced to one
thought--how to gain Lord Chetwynde to herself.

As long as he staid, something like hope remained; but when he would
leave, what hope could there be? Would he not leave her forever? Was
not this the strongest desire of his heart? Had he not said so? Every
day she watched, with a certain chilling fear at her heart, to see if
there were signs of his departure. As day succeeded to day, however,
and she found him still remaining, she began to hope that he might
possibly have relented somewhat, and that the sentence which he had
spoken to her might have become modified by time and further
o