While he tried to speak, he observed that Hilda had grown stout; though she did not look like herself, face and figure were nevertheless familiar. Ah! it was her uncle whom she had grown to resemble, and there was something grossly unpleasant in the change.
"You see, I've brought him!" announced the superintendent, as though this had been accomplished only by a very great effort.
Poor Hilda saw plainly—for this moment she had been cunningly planning. She did not rise or move forward or make any motion, except a motion with her lips. All that she wanted to say to her uncle and Dr. Good on the night when she came away, she said now, eloquently. Her heavy, motionless body seemed to add treble emphasis. Such accusations uttered with an accompaniment of hysterical laughter or of waving arms would have seemed mad; but she did not speak like a madwoman. One would have said that her reasoning was sound though her premises were false.
She had uttered a dozen sentences before her audience came to themselves. Then Stephen moved backward. He was not afraid; he simply wished to get away, to end the intolerable tirade as soon as possible. The nurse stepped between him and Hilda, and the doctor closed and locked the door quickly, himself and Stephen outside. Dr. King was distressed.
"One can never tell," he said, frowning. "I can't say that I'm altogether surprised, but I felt that the experiment should be made. You understand my motive?"
"Certainly," Stephen assured him.
In the office Stephen repeated his directions for Hilda's comfort. He would not sit down; he wished to escape quickly as he had wished to escape from the hospital when there had been lengthy operations with long incisions or with copious letting of blood. He had always avoided contact with unpleasant realities. When a nurse came to speak to the superintendent, he went out and got into the car, which he had driven himself. He had expected to go on to Philadelphia for the night, but his business there seemed suddenly unimportant. Neither did he wish to return home.
At the first crossroad he got out to investigate a suspicious sound in the running-gear of his car, and seeking the tool with which to tighten a screw scratched his left hand deeply, and irritably wiped away the blood. Then he stood still looking about. Harrisburg lay toward the west—a road led there directly; Philadelphia toward the east—Mayne was expecting him. He could not see Mayne of all persons in the world!
Then suddenly his eyes narrowed, the beat of his heart quickened, he smiled slowly. He had once visited Ithaca in the spring, it was lovely with its thick shade, its waterfalls, its lake; he determined that he would see it again. Then he laughed. He would go if it was as homely as Chestnut Ridge, if the month was January! No one need know, no one would ever be the worse for it. He could be there by to-morrow evening and any one so industrious as Ellen could cut Saturday classes. Saturday and Sunday would be days to set against months of unhappiness. He said again that no one would be the worse for it.
Suddenly he laughed at himself for a fool. Why had he not gone before? Why not at Christmas-time? If the mere intention could bring about this lightness of heart, this heavenly clearness of vision, this certainty of purpose, this deep joy, why had he not had all these long ago? She was, he did not doubt, prettier than ever, but it was not her prettiness which he valued, it was her youth, her steadfastness, her devotion. He was certain that she loved him, he remembered with amusement his short-lived jealousy.