The Rue d’Assas was dreary in a fine drizzling rain. In the Luxembourg Gardens the first young green made a mist upon the trees.
It was only half-past four when Odd reached his accustomed post, but hardly had he taken a turn up and down the street when he saw Hilda come quickly from the Lebon abode. She was fully half-an-hour early, but Odd had merely time to note the fact before seeing in a flash that Hilda was in trouble. She looked, she almost ran toward him; and he met her half-way with outstretched hands.
“O Peter!” It was the first time she had used his name, and Odd’s heart leaped as her hands caught his with a sort of desperate relief. “Come, come,” she said, taking his arm. “Let us go quickly.” Peter’s heart after its leap began to thump fast. The white distress of her face gave him a dizzy shock of anger. What, who had distressed her? He asked the question as they crossed the road and entered the gardens. Tears now streamed down her face.
He had only once before seen Hilda weep, and as she hung shaken with sobs on his arm, the past child, the present Hilda merged into one; his one, his only love.
“Let us walk here, dear,” he said; “you will be quieter.”
The little path down which they turned was empty, and the fine rain enveloped but hardly wet them. They came to a bench under a tree, circled by an unwet area of sanded path. Odd led the weeping girl to it and they sat down. She still held his arm tightly.
“Now, what is it?”
“O Peter! I can hardly tell you! The brother, the horrible brother.”
“Yes?” Peter felt the accumulations of rage that had been gathering for months hurrying forward to spring upon, to pulverize “the brother.”
“He made love to me, said awful things!” Odd whitened to the lips.