'Wrong, Hildred! no,' I answered sadly. 'You were so young when he left you, that I suppose it was too hard for you to remember. Only, how could we meet him if he came back?'
She looked frightened. 'You don't really think he will.'
'God only can tell that—we must do everything as if we expected him. I know that if he were here it would be all right; you would only need to see him again. But Hildred'—I had come now to the most difficult thing I had to say,—'Hildred, my father told you, last night, something about me, that I never meant you to hear. It must be, for both of us, as if it had never been told.'
'Is it true?' she asked, without looking up.
'Yes.'
After a little while I said, 'Don't let it come between us. Let me be your brother still, and Cuthbert's.'
Hildred tried to say, 'Thank you.' Her tears were falling down slowly upon the clasped hands in her lap.
'Don't cry, dear, don't be sorry.'
'You have been so good to me,' she whispered.
They were very simple words. I don't quite know how it was, that I knew from them that she had grown to love me. I bent down, pressing my hands tightly together to force back the rising words.