Marcelline, who was rather strong-minded, lost patience at last, and asked Mdlle. Duprez, in an undertone, as she handed a plate of petits fours, if her young friend was not just a trifle stupid.
"She is as clever as you and your sister, and that is saying a good deal," replied Louise Duprez, in the same undertone; "but she has just suffered a great heart-blow, and that kind of thing is not calculated to make one particularly lively."
This was enough for Marcelline, who was very tender-hearted. She went back to her seat next Hilda, and took her hand at the first opportunity.
"I hope we are going to be great friends," she murmured, "although you and Mathilde will have more in common. I long to hear you sing. Mdlle. Duprez says you have such a lovely voice. But perhaps you are too tired to sing to-night."
"If you will excuse me," faltered Hilda.
"Of course, we will excuse you. You must be very tired, after travelling all night. And you were dreadfully sea-sick, no doubt?"
"No, I escaped that suffering. I am never sea-sick."
"Good heavens, is that possible? If I go but a little way on the sea, the least little way, I suffer tortures, veritable agonies. And you others, you English, do not seem to suffer at all. You are a kind of sea-dogs, to whom waves and tempest are a natural element."
"I was brought up near the coast," answered Hilda. "I have been out in all weathers."
And then she thought of that wild, rock-bound coast on which she and Bothwell were to have lived, they two, all in all to each other, ineffably happy amidst simplest surroundings. She thought of the boat they were to have had—the cockle-shell row-boat in which they were to have gone dancing over the waves from Tintagel to Boscastle, or by Trebarwith sands, shining golden in the sunlight—in a bright world of life and clamour, the bird-world of gulls and cormorants, a winged populace, rejoicing in sea-foam, and light, and the music of the winds. She thought of the life that was to have been—the fairy fabric of the future, which had seemed so beautiful and so real, and which her ruthless hand had shattered.
Had she done right in so surrendering that fair future? Yes, again and again yes. The level domestic life which would have been so sweet to her as a woman would have been stagnation, a slow decay for an ambitious man. Her simple rustic rearing had prepared her for such a life. The monotony of a village existence was all-sufficient for her narrower views, her more concentrated nature. But Bothwell had seen the world, had lived in the thick of the strife; and it was most unnatural that he should resign all ambition, and live from day to day, working for his daily bread,
