THE October day was deliciously warm at Allersley, a fragrant autumnal warmth, limpid with sunshine, and the woods all golden.

Odd was walking through the woods, the sunshine of home and hope in his blood, his mood of resolute success tempered by no more than just a touch of trembling.

In the distance lay the river, a glitter here and there beyond the tree trunks; the little landing-wharf where he had first seen Hilda was no doubt still unchanged and worth a pilgrimage on some later day, but now he must take the most direct way to the Priory; he had only arrived an hour before, but a minute’s further delay would be unbearable. This day must atone for all the past failure of his life, and make his autumn golden. He walked quickly, following, he remembered, almost the same path among the trees that he and Hilda had gone by that night, ten years ago; the memory emphasized the touch of trembling. To dwell on her dearness made fear tread closely. The gray stone wall wound among the woods, Peter caught sight of it, and, at the same moment, of the fluttering white of a dress beyond it that made his heart stand still.

He could not have hoped to find Hilda here with no teasing preliminaries, no languid mother or sulky father to mar the fine rush of his onslaught.

Such good luck augured well, for—yes, it was Hilda walking slowly among the trees—and at the clear sight of her, Peter wondered if the breathing space of a conventional preliminary would not have been better, and felt that he had exaggerated his own courage in picturing that conquering impetuosity.

She wore no hat, and her head drooped with an air of patient sadness. Her hands clasped behind her, she walked aimlessly over the falling leaves and seemed absently to listen to their rustling crispness as her footsteps passed through them. There was a black bow in the ruffled bodice, and with her black hair she made on the gold and gray a colorless silhouette.

Odd jumped over the wall, and, as he approached her, the rustling leaves under his feet, their falling patter from the trees, seemed to fill the air with loud whisperings. Hilda turned at this echo of her own footfalls, and Odd could almost have smiled at the weary unexpectancy of her look transformed to a wide gaze of recognition. But his heart was in a flame of indignant tenderness, for, all chivalrous comprehension conceded, Katherine’s confession had been cruelly tardy and Hilda’s face was pitiful. She stood silent and motionless looking at him, and Odd, as he joined her, said the first words that came to his lips.

“My child! How ill you look!”

The self-forgetful devotion of his voice, his eyes, sent a quiver across her face, but Odd, seeing only its frozen pain, remembered those stabbing words: “You are cruel and weak and mean,” which she had spoken with just such a look, and any lingering thought of a fine onslaught was nipped in the bud.

“I may speak to you?” he asked.

Hilda, for her own part, found it almost impossible to speak; she wanted to throw herself on his breast and weep away all the gnawing loneliness, all the cruel doubts and bitter sense of guilt. The sight of him gave her such joy that everything was already half forgotten—even Katherine; even Katherine—she realized it and steeled herself to say with cold faintness—

“Oh, yes;” adding, “you startled me.”

“So thin, so pale, such woful eyes!” He stood staring at her.

“You—don’t look well either,” she said, still in the soft cold voice.

“I should be very sorry to look well.”

Peter was adapting himself to reality; but if the impetuous dream was abandoned, the courage of humbler methods was growing, and he could smile a little at her.

“Hilda, I have a great deal to tell you. Will you walk with me for a little while? It is a lovely day for walking. How beautiful the woods are looking.”

“Beautiful. I walk here a great deal.” She looked away from him and into the golden distance.

“And you will walk here now with me?” he asked, adding, as the pale hesitation of her face again turned to him, “Don’t be frightened, dear, I am not going to force any solution upon you; I am not going to try to make you think well of me in spite of your conscience.”

Think well of him! As if, good or bad, he was not everything to her, and the rest of the world nowhere! Hilda now looked down at the leaves.

“And here is Palamon,” said Peter, as that delightful beast came at a sort of abrupt and ploughing gallop, necessitated by the extreme shortness of his crumpled legs, through the heaped and fallen foliage. “He remembers me, too, the dear old boy,” and Palamon, whose very absorbed and business-like manner gave way to sudden and smiling demonstration, was patted and rubbed cordially in answer to his cordial welcome.

“It must seem strange to you being here again after such a time,” said Odd, when he and Hilda turned towards the river, Palamon, with an air of happy sympathy, at their heels. The river was invisible, a good half-mile away, and the whispering hush of the woods surrounded them.

“It doesn’t seem strange, no,” Hilda replied; “it seems very peaceful.”

“And are you peaceful with it?” All the implied reserves of her tone made Peter wonder, as he had often wondered, at the strength of this fragile creature; for, although that conviction of having wronged another was accountable for her haggard young face, the crushed anguish of her love for him was no less apparent in the very aloofness of her glance.

“I feel merely very useless,” she said with a vague smile.

“I have seen Katherine, Hilda.” Odd waited during a few moments of silent walking before making the announcement, and Hilda stopped short and turned wondering eyes on him.

“It was at Amalfi. She had just received your letter, and she sent for me; she had something to say to me.” Hilda kept silence, and Odd added, “You knew that she was on a yachting trip?” Hilda bowed assent. “And that Allan Hope is of the party?”

“I heard that; yes.”

“And that he and Katherine are to be married?”

Here Hilda gave a little gasp.

“She doesn’t love him,” she cried. Odd considered her with a disturbed look.

“You mustn’t say that, you know. I fancy she does—love him.”

“She did it desperately after you had failed her; after I had robbed her.”

Odd was too conscious of the possibility of a subtle half-truth in this to assert the bold unvarnished whole truth of a negative.

Hilda’s loyalty lent a dignity to Katharine’s most doubtful motives, a dignity that Katherine would probably contemplate with surprise, but accept with philosophic pleasure.

Had Hilda indeed robbed her unwittingly? Had he failed her long before her deliberate breach of faith? He had, she said, shown his love for Hilda, and would she ha............