As she stood there a tap came at the door.
"Come in," said Hilda, in her usual calm tone, turning as she spoke to face the door.
It was the maid.
"My lady," said she, "his lordship has just arrived."
To her, at that moment, such intelligence could have been nothing less than tremendous. It told her that the crisis of her life had come; and to meet it was inevitable, whatever the result might be. He had come. He, the one whom she must face; not the crude boy, but the man, tried in battle and in danger and in judgment, in the camp and in the court; the man who she now knew well was not surpassed by many men among that haughty race to which he belonged. This man was accustomed to face guilt and fear; he had learned to read the soul; he had become familiar with all that the face may make known of the secret terrors of conscience. And how could she meet the calm eyes of one who found her here in such a relation toward him? Yet all this she had weighed before in her mind; she was not unprepared. The hour and the man had come. She was found ready.
She regarded the maid for a few moments in silence. At last she spoke.
"Very well," she said, coldly, and without any perceptible emotion of any kind. "I will go down to meet his lordship."
His lordship has just arrived! The words had been spoken, and the speaker had departed, but the words still echoed and re-echoed through the soul of the hearer. What might this involve? and what would be the end of this arrival?
Suddenly she stepped to the door and called the maid.
"Has any one accompanied his lordship?"