"The General was going to take a drive to visit a friend, and she took it into her head to accompany him. Of course he had to take her. It was very inconvenient--and very ridiculous--but the moment she proposed it he assented, with only a very faint effort at dissuasion. So they have gone, and will not be back for some hours." "I hope you will allow me to say," remarked Gualtier, in a low voice, "that I consider her absence rather an advantage than otherwise." "You could hardly feel otherwise," said Hilda. "You have not yet got a broken head, it is true; but it is coming. Some day you will not walk out of the house. You will be carried out." "You speak bitterly." "I feel bitterly." "Has any thing new happened?" he asked, following up the advantage which her confession gave him. "No; it is the old story. Interminable troubles, which have to be borne with interminable patience." There was a long silence. "You spoke once," said Gualtier at last, in a low tone, "of something which you promised one day to tell me--some papers. You said that you would show them some day when we were better acquainted. Are we not better acquainted? You have seen me now for many weeks since that time, and ought to know whether I am worthy to be trusted or not." "Mr. Gualtier," said Hilda, frankly, and without hesitation, "from my point of view I have concluded that you are worthy to be trusted. I have decided to show you the paper." Gualtier began to murmur his thanks, Hilda waved her hand. "There is no need of that," said she. "It may not amount to any thing, and then your thanks will be thrown away. If it does amount to something you will share the benefit of it with me--though you can not share the revenge," she muttered, in a lower tone. "But, after all," she continued, "I do not know that any thing can be gained by it. The conjectures which I have formed may all be unfounded." "At any rate, I shall be able to see what the foundation is," said Gualtier. "True," returned Hilda, rising; "and so I will go at once and get the paper." "Have you kept it ever since?" he asked. "What! the paper? Oh, you must not imagine that I have kept the original! No, no. I kept it long enough to make a copy, and returned the original to its place." "Where did you find it?" "In the General's private desk." "Did it seem to be a paper of any importance?" "Yes; it was kept by itself in a secret drawer. That showed its importance." Hilda then left the room, and in a short time returned with a paper in her hand. "Here it is," she said, and she gave it to Gualtier. Gualtier took it, and unfolding it, he saw this: Gualtier took this singular paper, and examined it long and earnestly. Hilda had copied out the characters with painful minuteness and beautiful accuracy; but nothing in it suggested to him any revelation of its dark meaning, and he put it down with a strange, bewildered air.