“Your example has been contagious.”
“Let me think so by proving yourself more worthy than you seem. Ask your sister’s forgiveness—as I ask yours—humbly. She has not feared humiliation.”
“I do not find myself in a position to fear or accept it. I found Hilda in the dust, and I cannot forgive her for having fallen there. Her poor confession was no atonement. And now, Mr. Odd, I make an exit more apropos than my entrance, and leave you with her.” Katherine took up her wrap and walked out without looking again at Hilda.
“And I have done this,” said Odd. Hilda lay motionless, her face upon her arms, and he approached her. There was a strange effect of no Hilda at all under the heavy folds of the gown; in the dark it glimmered with a vacant whiteness; it was as though the cruel words had beaten away her body and her soul.
“Hilda!” said Odd, broken-heartedly, hesitating as he paused beside her, not daring to touch the still figure. “Hilda!” he repeated; “if only you will forgive me; if only you will own that it is I, I only who need forgiveness, and unsay those mad words that gave her the power! Oh! that she should have had the power! She has made remorse impossible!” Odd added, addressing himself rather than Hilda, whose silence offered no hint of sympathy.
“Why did you put yourself under her feet and make me powerless?” he asked; “you know that your gentle reticence had for months kept my love in check; you knew that had I kept at your level, you would have never realized that you loved me.” He bent above her and kissed her hand. “Precious one! Dearest, dearest child.”
“Oh, don’t!” said Hilda. She drew her hand away, not lifting her head. “Her heart is broken. I am all that she said.”
“Her heart is not broken!” cried Odd, in rather desperate accents. “I could swear to it! She is a cruel, heartless girl!”
“What would you have asked of her? You were cruel to her.”
“I am glad of it.” And as Hilda made no reply to this statement, he stooped to her again, imploring: “Will you not look at me? Look up, dearest; tell me again that you love me.”