“You dare speak so to me! After this! After our baseness! You dare to speak of some day? There will never be any day for us—together.”
“I say there will be, Hilda.”
“You think that I could ever forget my sister’s misery; my shame and yours?”
“You are raving, my poor child. I think that common sense will win the day.”
“That is a placid term for such degradation.”
“I see no degradation in a love that can rise above a hideous mistake.”
“You will find that hideous mistakes are things that cling. You can’t mend a broken heart by marching over it.”
“One may avoid breaking another.”
“You make me scorn you. I am ashamed of loving you. Yes; there is the bitterest shame of all. I love you and I despise you. You are nothing that I thought you. You are weak, and cruel, and mean.”
“You, Hilda, are only cruel—unutterably cruel,” said Odd brokenly.