it had grown to
something more, it had become a frenzy; and the more she yielded to
its overmastering power, the more did that power enchain her.

Tormented and tortured by such feelings as these, her weary, overworn
frame sank once more, and the sufferings of Frankfort were renewed at
Munich. On the next day after her arrival she was unable to leave.
For day after day she lay prostrate, and all her impatient eagerness
to go onward, and all her resolution, profited nothing when the poor
frail flesh was so weak. Yet, in spite of all this, her soul was
strong; and that soul, by its indomitable purpose, roused up once
more the shattered forces of the body. A week passed away, but at the
end of that week she arose to stagger forward.

Her journey to Lausanne was made somehow--she knew not how--partly by
the help of Gretchen, who watched over her incessantly with
inexhaustible devotion--partly through the strength of her own
forceful will, which kept before her the great end which was to crown
so much endeavor. She was a shattered invalid on this journey. She
felt that another such a journey would be impossible. She hoped that
this one would end her severe trials. And so, amidst hope and fear,
her soul sustained her, and she went on. Such a journey as this to
one less exhausted would have been one memorable on account of its
physical and mental anguish, but to Hilda, in that extreme of
suffering, it was not memorable at all. It was less than a dream. It
was a blank. How it passed she knew not. Afterward she only could
remember that in some way it did pass.

On the twenty-second day of November she reached Lausanne. Gretchen
lifted her out of the coach, and supported her as she tottered into
the Hotel Gibbon. A man was standing in the doorway. At first he did
not notice the two women, but something in Hilda's appearance struck
him, and he looked earnestly at her.

An exclamation burst from him.

"My God!" he groaned.

[Illustration: Hilda's Arrival At The Hotel Gibbon.]

For a moment he stood staring at them, and then advanced with a rapid
pace.

It was Gualtier.

Hilda recognized him, but said nothing. She could not speak a word.
She wished to ask for something, but dreaded to ask that question,
for she feared the reply. In that interval of fear and hesitation
Gualtier had leisure to see, in one brief glance, all the change that
had come over her who had once been so strong, so calm, so
self-reliant, so unm