"I met Thompson"--Mr. Thompson was Peter"s land-agent--"and everything is settled. Poor chap! Thompson says he"s badly broken up."
"How futile to mourn over death," Mrs. Archinard sighed from her sofa.
"Tangled as we are in the webs of temperament, and environment, and circ.u.mstance, should we not rather rejoice at the release from the great illusion?" Mrs. Archinard laid down a dreary French novel and vaguely yawned, while the Captain muttered something about talking "rot" before the children.
"Move this lamp away, Hilda," said Mrs. Archinard. "I think I can take a nap now, if Katherine will put on the soft pedal."
It was a warm autumn night, and the windows were open. Hilda slipped out when she had moved the lamp away.
She could not go by the country road, nor scramble through the hedge, but to climb over the wall would be an easy matter. Hilda ran over the lawn, across the meadows, and through the woods. In the uncanny darkness her white dress glimmered like the flitting wings of a moth. As she came to the wall the moon seemed to slide from behind a cloud. Hilda"s heart stood still with a sudden terror at her loneliness there in the wood at night. The boy-like vault over the wall gave her an impetus of courage, and she began to run, feeling, as she ran, that the courage was only mechanical, that the moon, the mystery of a dimly seen infinity of tree trunks, the sorrow holding her heart as if in a physical pressure, were all terrible and terrifying. But Hilda, on occasions, could show an indomitable moral courage even while her body quaked, and she ran all the half-mile from the boundary wall to Allersley Manor without stopping. There was a light in the library window; even at a distance she had seen it glowing between the trees. She ran more slowly over the lawn, and paused on the gravel path outside the library to get her breath. Yes, _he_ was there alone. She looked into the dignified quiet of the fine old room. A tall lamp threw a strong light on the pages of the book he held, and his head was in shadow. The window was ajar, and Hilda pushed it open and went in.
At the sound Odd glanced up, and his face took on a look of half incredulous stupefaction. Hilda"s white face, tossed hair, the lamentable condition of her muslin frock, made of her indeed a startling apparition.
"My dear Hilda!" he exclaimed.
Hilda pressed her palms together, and stared silently at him. Mr. Odd"s face looked so much older; its gravity made her heart stand still with an altogether new sense of calamity. She stood helplessly before him, tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g to her eyes.
"My dear child, what is the matter? You positively frightened me."
"I came to say "Good-bye,"" said Hilda brokenly.
Peter"s gravity was mere astonishment and sympathetic dismay. The tear-brimmed eyes, after his weeks of solitary brooding, filled him with a most exquisite rush of pity and tenderness.
"Come here, you dear child," he said, holding out his arms to her; "you came to say "Good-bye?" I am very grateful to you."
Hilda leaned her head against his shoulder and wept. After the frozen nightmare moment, the old kindness was a delicious contrast; she almost forgot the purport of her journey, though she knew that she was crying.
Odd stroked her long hair; her tears slightly amused and slightly alarmed him, even while the pathos of the affection they revealed touched him deeply.
"Did you come alone?" he asked.
Hilda nodded.
"That was a very plucky thing to do. I thank you for it. There, can"t you smile at me? Don"t cry."
"Oh, I love you _so_ much, I can hardly bear it." Peter felt uncomfortable. The capacity for suffering revealed in these words gave him a sense of responsibility. Poor child! Would her lot in life be to cry over people who were not worth it?
"I shall come back some day, Hilda." Hilda stopped crying, and Peter was relieved by the sobs" cessation. "I have a wandering fit on me just now; you understand that, don"t you?"
She held his hand tightly. She could not speak; her heart swelled so at his tone of mutual understanding.
"I am going to see my sister. I haven"t seen her for five years; but long before another five years are pa.s.sed I shall be here again, and the thing I shall most want to see when I get back will be your little face."
"But you will be different then, I will be different, we will both be changed." Hilda put her hands before her face and sobbed again. Peter was silent for a moment, rather aghast at the child"s apprehension of the world"s deepest tragedy. He could not tell her that they would be unchanged--he the man of thirty-five, she the girl of seventeen. Poor little Hilda! Her grief was but too well founded, and his thoughts wandered for a moment with Hilda"s words far away from Hilda herself.
Hilda wiped her eyes and sat upright. Odd looked at her. He had a keen sense of the unconventional in beauty, and her tears had not disfigured her small face--had only made it strange. He patted her cheek and smiled at her.
"Cheer up, little one!" She evidently tried to smile back.
"I am afraid you have idealized me, my child--it"s a dangerous faculty.
I am a very ordinary sort of person, Hilda; you must not imagine fine things about me nor care so much. I"m not worth one of those tears, poor little girl!"
It was difficult to feel amused before her solemn gaze; a sage prophecy of inevitable recovery would be brutal; to show too much sympathy equally cruel. But the reality of her feeling dignified her grief, and he found himself looking gravely into her large eyes.
"You"re not worth it?" she repeated.
"No, really."
"I don"t imagine things about you."
"Well, I am glad of that," said Peter, feeling rather at a loss.
"I love you dearly," said Hilda, with a certain air of dreary dignity; "you are you. I don"t have to imagine anything."
Odd put her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.
"Thank you, my dear child. I love you too, and certainly I don"t have to imagine anything."
Hilda"s eyes, with their effect of wide, almost unseeing expansion, rested on his for a moment longer. She drew herself up, and a look of resolution, self-control, and fidelity hardened her young face. Odd still felt somewhat disconcerted, somewhat at a loss.
"I must go now; they don"t know that I am here."
"They didn"t know that you were coming, I suppose?"
"No; they wouldn"t have let me come if I had told them before, but I will tell them now."
"Well, we will tell them together."
"Are you going to take me home?"
"Did you imagine that I would let you go alone?"
"You are very kind."
"And what are you, then? Your shoes are wringing wet, my child. Your dress is thin, too, for this time of year. Wrap this coat of mine around you. There! and put on this hat."
Peter laughed as he coiffed her in the soft felt hat that came down over her ears; she looked charming and quaint in the grotesque costume. Hilda responded with a quiet, patient little smile, gathering together the wide sleeves of the covert coat. Odd lit a cigar, put on his own hat, took her hand, and they sallied forth.
"You came across, I suppose?"
"Yes, by the woods."
"And you weren"t frightened?"
He felt the patient little smile in the darkness as she replied--
"You know already that I am a coward."
"I know, on the contrary, that you are amazingly courageous. The flesh may be weak, but the spirit is willing with a vengeance. Eh, Hilda?"
"Yes," said Hilda vaguely.