“In reply to an avowal of love on my part, a love you misunderstood. You know, as I knew when you spoke, that the affection you owned so finely, so nobly, so purely, was the child’s love, the love of the loyal sister for her friend, the love of an angel.”
“Oh!” cried Odd, looking at her with savage tenderness, “this is unbearable.”
It was as if they had forgotten, each in the mutual justification of the other, Katherine standing there a silent spectator.
But Odd was conscious of that outraging contemplation.
“Hilda,” he said appealingly and yet sternly, “at the very height of your trust in me I betrayed it. Your nobility had reached its climax. I had kissed you and you retreated, but without a shadow of doubt; and I, from the base wish to try your trust to the utmost, said that I loved you. You never faltered from your innocent outlook in replying; it was I who saw the truth, not you.”
“Katherine,” Hilda repeated, “he is trying to shield me. We are both base, yes; but I forced him to baseness. I longed for him to love me, and when he took me in his arms, I was glad.”
“Good God!” cried Peter.
Katherine averted her eyes from her sister’s face.
“I must own, Peter,” she said, “that your position was difficult. Hilda evidently painted the pathos of her life to you in most touching colors—she herself very white on the background of our black depravity. That in itself is enough to shake a rather emotional heart like yours. And then, Hilda being very beautiful, and you not a Galahad I fear, she confesses her love for you, retreating delicately before your kisses. Of course those kisses she received as platonic pledges—from the man engaged to her sister. Trying for the man, very; I quite recognize it. Under such tempting circumstances the struggle for loyalty and honor must have been difficult. As you could hardly solve the difficulty, she solved it for you, very effectually, very courageously. When you took her in your arms—how often we repeat that phrase—the ‘truth’ at last flashed upon you. Even devoted friendship could hardly account for such yielding unconventionality, and Hilda’s hidden love won the day.”