“Laugh.”
He came nearer to her—quite near, until his sleeve almost touched her bowed head.
“I thought—at St. Mary Western—that you loved me.”
She seemed to shrink away from him.
“What made me think so, Hilda?”
She raised her head, and her eyes flashed one momentary appeal for mercy—like the eyes of a whipped dog.
“Tell me,” he said sternly.
“It was,” she whispered, “because I thought so myself.”
“And when I was gone you found out that you had made a mistake?”
“Yes; he was so kind, so brave, Christian—because he knew of my mistake.”