The astonishing change in Gualtier was an overwhelming shock to Hilda. She had committed the fatal mistake of underrating him, and of putting herself completely in his power. She had counted on his being always humble and docile, always subservient and blindly obedient. She had put from her all thoughts of a possible day of reckoning. She had fostered his devotion to her so as to be used for her own ends, and now found that she had raised up a power which might sweep her away. In the first assertion of that power she had been vanquished, and compelled to make a promise which she had at first refused with the haughtiest contempt. She could only take refuge in vague plans of evading her promise, and in punishing Gualtier for what seemed to her his unparalleled audacity. Yet, after all, bitter as the humiliation had been, it did not lessen her fervid passion for Lord Chetwynde, and the hate and the vengeance that had arisen when that passion had been condemned. After the first shock of the affair with Gualtier had passed, her madness and fury against him passed also, and her wild spirit was once again filled with the all-engrossing thought of Lord Chetwynde. Gualtier had gone off, as he said, and she was to see him no more for some time--perhaps never. He had his own plans and purposes, of the details of which Hilda knew nothing, but could only conjecture. She felt that failure on his part was not probable, and gradually, so confident was she that he would succeed, Lord Chetwynde began to seem to her not merely a doomed man, but a man who had already undergone his doom. And now another change came over her--that change which Death can make in the heart of the most implacable of men when his enemy has left life forever. From the pangs of wounded love she had sought refuge in vengeance--but the prospect of a gratified vengeance was but a poor compensation for the loss of the hope of a requited love. The tenderness of love still remained, and it struggled with the ferocity of vengeance. That love pleaded powerfully for Lord Chetwynde's life. Hope came also, to lend its assistance to the arguments of love. Would it not be better to wait--even for years--and then perhaps the fierceness of Lord Chetwynde's repugnance might be allayed? Why destroy him, and her hope, and her love, forever, and so hastily? After such thoughts as these, however, the remembrance of Lord Chetwynde's contempt was sure to return and intensify her vengeance.