Part 40 (1/2)

”My child! How ill you look!”

The self-forgetful devotion of his voice, his eyes, sent a quiver across her face, but Odd, seeing only its frozen pain, remembered those stabbing words: ”You are cruel and weak and mean,” which she had spoken with just such a look, and any lingering thought of a fine onslaught was nipped in the bud.

”I may speak to you?” he asked.

Hilda, for her own part, found it almost impossible to speak; she wanted to throw herself on his breast and weep away all the gnawing loneliness, all the cruel doubts and bitter sense of guilt. The sight of him gave her such joy that everything was already half forgotten--even Katherine; even Katherine--she realized it and steeled herself to say with cold faintness--

”Oh, yes;” adding, ”you startled me.”

”So thin, so pale, such woful eyes!” He stood staring at her.

”You--don't look well either,” she said, still in the soft cold voice.

”I should be very sorry to look well.”

Peter was adapting himself to reality; but if the impetuous dream was abandoned, the courage of humbler methods was growing, and he could smile a little at her.

”Hilda, I have a great deal to tell you. Will you walk with me for a little while? It is a lovely day for walking. How beautiful the woods are looking.”

”Beautiful. I walk here a great deal.” She looked away from him and into the golden distance.

”And you will walk here now with me?” he asked, adding, as the pale hesitation of her face again turned to him, ”Don't be frightened, dear, I am not going to force any solution upon you; I am not going to try to make you think well of me in spite of your conscience.”

Think well of him! As if, good or bad, he was not everything to her, and the rest of the world nowhere! Hilda now looked down at the leaves.

”And here is Palamon,” said Peter, as that delightful beast came at a sort of abrupt and ploughing gallop, necessitated by the extreme shortness of his crumpled legs, through the heaped and fallen foliage.

”He remembers me, too, the dear old boy,” and Palamon, whose very absorbed and business-like manner gave way to sudden and smiling demonstration, was patted and rubbed cordially in answer to his cordial welcome.

”It must seem strange to you being here again after such a time,” said Odd, when he and Hilda turned towards the river, Palamon, with an air of happy sympathy, at their heels. The river was invisible, a good half-mile away, and the whispering hush of the woods surrounded them.

”It doesn't seem strange, no,” Hilda replied; ”it seems very peaceful.”

”And are you peaceful with it?” All the implied reserves of her tone made Peter wonder, as he had often wondered, at the strength of this fragile creature; for, although that conviction of having wronged another was accountable for her haggard young face, the crushed anguish of her love for him was no less apparent in the very aloofness of her glance.

”I feel merely very useless,” she said with a vague smile.

”I have seen Katherine, Hilda.” Odd waited during a few moments of silent walking before making the announcement, and Hilda stopped short and turned wondering eyes on him.

”It was at Amalfi. She had just received your letter, and she sent for me; she had something to say to me.” Hilda kept silence, and Odd added, ”You knew that she was on a yachting trip?” Hilda bowed a.s.sent. ”And that Allan Hope is of the party?”

”I heard that; yes.”

”And that he and Katherine are to be married?”

Here Hilda gave a little gasp.

”She doesn't love him,” she cried. Odd considered her with a disturbed look.

”You mustn't say that, you know. I fancy she does--love him.”