It was on the table, and Hamilton pushed it towards her. She sat down, drew a candle near her, and, shading her eyes with one hand, held the letter steadily with the other. When she had finished reading it, she gave it to Hamilton, saying: “That is a wild piece of composition; how fortunate that it fell into your hands! Had it been sent to me, I should have been placed in a most unpleasant position. My father, my mother, would have read it; I must have explained, and Marie de Hoffmann would perhaps have heard of Oscar’s dislike to her, and have blamed me more than I deserve.” Hamilton read the letter, and when she took it out of his hand, she tore it to pieces. “I wish I could burn these remnants,” she said, crushing them together in her hand. “Nothing more easy,” said Hamilton, pointing towards the stove. They walked to it, and deliberately burned the pieces, one by one; the incoherent sentences becoming once more legible in a charred state before they crumbled into ashes. “Thank you,” said Hildegarde, turning away; “and now, good-night.” “Will you not take a candle; or, shall I light you?” asked Hamilton. “Neither: I do not wish to wake Walburg.” As Hamilton held the door open, he recollected vividly the last time she had been in his room at night. She was too much preoccupied to think of it; but, stopping suddenly, she turned to him, and said: “Do you remember my warning, my presentiment of evil?” “Perfectly,” he answered; “but I think the idea was caused by your imagining you were about to do something which your father perhaps might not quite approve.” “You account for everything rationally, and will of course not believe me when I tell you that I knew and _felt_ beforehand that Oscar would come to our house yesterday, and act precisely as he did.” “I do believe you; but it was your natural understanding which made you think he would take advantage of your parent’s absence to claim your promise. Then the almost certainty of my presence, to give the performance a zest. Perhaps, however, the strongest motive of all, but which you could not have known, was to take leave of you. I must do him the justice to say, I believe he thought he saw you for the last time then.” “Would that it had been!” said Hildegarde. “I could at least have regretted him as a near relation, and felt pity for his untimely end.” “And do you not feel this?” asked Hamilton. “No,” answered Hildegarde, sternly. “In recalling calmly his words and actions this night, I find him wholly unworthy of esteem. My recollection of him, now stained with blood, is hideous, most horrible.” She shuddered while she spoke, and then walked down the dark passage without looking at Hamilton, who held his door open until she had entered her room. --------------------- CHAPTER XXXI. WHERE IS THE BRIDEGROOM?