an april sky smiled over paris on the day of odd’s return. a rather prolonged tour had tanned his face, and completely cured his lungs.

he expected to find katherine already in paris; her last letters had announced her departure from a surrey country house, and had implied some anxiety in regard to a prolonged illness of mrs. archinard’s. katherine had written him very soon after their parting, that the captain had gone on a yachting trip in the mediterranean, and that she knew that he had left hilda with money, so peter need not worry. peter had seen to this matter before leaving paris, and had approved of the captain’s projected jaunt. he surmised that her father’s absence would lighten hilda’s load, and hoped that the sum he placed in the captain’s hands—on the understanding that most of it was to be given to hilda—but from her father, would relieve her from the necessity for teaching. peter called at the rue pierre charron early in the afternoon, but the servant (neither taylor nor wilson, but a more hybrid-looking individual with unmistakable culinary traces upon her countenance) told him that mademoiselle archinard had not yet arrived. madame still in bed “toujours souffrante,” and “mademoiselle ‘ilda”—odd had hesitated uncomfortably before asking for her—was out. “pas bien non plus, celle-là,” she volunteered, with a kindly french familiarity that still more strongly emphasized the contrast with taylor and wilson; “elle s’éreinte, voyez-vous monsieur, la pauvre demoiselle.” with a sick sense of calamity and helplessness upon him, odd asked at what hours she might be found. all the morning, it seemed “il faut bien qu’elle soigne madame, et puis elle m’aide. je suis seule et la besogne serait par trop lourde,” and rosalie also volunteered the remark that “madame est très, mais très exigeante, nuit et jour; pas moyen de dormir avec une damê comme celle-là.”

odd looked at his watch; it was almost five. if hilda had kept to her days he should probably find her in the rue d’assas, and, with the angriest feelings for himself and for the whole archinard family, hilda excepted, he was driven there through a sudden shower that scudded in fretful clouds across the blue above. he was none too soon, for he caught sight of hilda half-way up the street as they turned the corner. the sight of him, as he jumped out of the cab and waylaid her, half dazed her evidently.

“you? i can hardly believe it!” she gasped, smiling, but in a voice that plainly showed over-wrought mental and physical conditions. she was wofully white and thin; the hollowed line of her cheek gave to her lips a prominence pathetically, heartrendingly childlike; her clothes had reached a pitch of shabbiness that could hardly claim gentility; the slits in her umbrella and the battered shapelessness of her miserable little hat symbolized a biting poverty.

“hilda! hilda!” was all odd found to say as he put her into the cab. he was aghast.

“i am glad to see you,” she said, and her voice had a forced gayety over its real weakness; “i haven’t seen any of my people for so long, except mamma. an illness seems to put years between things, doesn’t it? poor mamma has been so really ill. it has troubled me horribly, for i could not tell whether it were grave enough to bring back papa and katherine; but katherine is coming. i expected her a day or two ago, and mamma is much, much better. as for papa, the last time i heard from him he was in greece and going on to constantinople. i am glad now that he hasn’t been needlessly frightened, for he will get all my last letters together, and will hear that she is almost well again. and you are here! and kathy coming! i feel that all my clouds are breaking.”

odd could trust his voice now; her courage, strung as he felt it to be over depths of dreadful suffering, nerved him to a greater self-control.

“if i had known i would have come sooner,” he said; “you would have let me help you, wouldn’t you?”

“i am afraid you couldn’t have helped me. that is the worst of illness, one can only wait; but you would have cheered me up.”

“my poor child!” odd inwardly cursed himself. “if i had known! what have you been doing to yourself, hilda? you look—“

“fagged, don’t i? it is the anxiety; i have given up half my work since you left; my pictures are accepted at the champs de mars. we’ll all go to the vernissage together. and, as they were done, i let miss latimer have the studio for the whole day. that left me my mornings free for mamma.”

“taylor helped you, i suppose?”

“taylor is with katherine. she went before mamma was at all ill, and indeed mamma insisted that katherine must have her maid. i was glad that she should go, for she has worked hard without a rest for so long, and, of course, travelling about as she has been doing, katherine needed her.” there was an explanatory note in hilda’s voice; indeed odd’s silence, big with comment, gave it a touch of defiance. “it made double duty for rosalie, but she is a good, willing creature, and has not minded.”

“and wilson?”

“he went with papa. i don’t think papa could live without wilson.”

“oh, indeed. i begin to solve the problem of your ghastly little face. you have been housemaid, garde-malade, and bread-winner. had you no money at all?” hilda flushed—the quick flush of physical weakness.

“yes, at first,” she replied; “papa gave me quite a lot before going, and that has paid part of the doctor’s bills, and my lessons brought in the usual amount.”

“could you not have given up the lessons for the time being?”

“i know you think it dreadful in me to have left mamma for all those afternoons.” her acceptation of a blame infinitely removed from his thoughts stupefied odd. “and mamma has thought it heartless, most naturally. but rosalie is trustworthy and kind. the doctor came three times a day and i can explain to you”—hilda hesitated—“the money papa gave me went almost immediately—some unpaid bills.”

“what bills?” odd spoke sternly.

“why, we owe bills right and left!” said hilda.

“but what bills were these?”

“there was the rent of the apartment for one thing; we should have had to go had that not been paid; and then, some tailors, a dressmaker; they threatened to seize the furniture.”

“katherine’s dressmaker?”

“yes; katherine, i know, never dreamed that she would be so impatient; but i suppose, on hearing that katherine had gone to england, the woman became frightened.” peter controlled himself to silence. the very fulness of hilda’s confidence showed the strain that had been put upon her. “and then,” she went on, as he did not speak, “some of the money had to go to katherine in england. poor kathy! to be pinched like that! she wrote, that at one place it took her last shilling to tip the servants and get her railway ticket to surrey.”

“why did she not write to me? considering all things—“

“oh!” said hilda—her tone needed no comment—“we have not quite come to that.” she added presently and gently, “i had money for her.”

odd took her hand and kissed it; the glove was loose upon it.

“and now,” said hilda, leaning forward and smiling at him, “you have heard me filer mon chapelet. tell me what you have been doing.”

“my lazy wanderings in the sun would sound too grossly egotistic after your story.”

“has my story sounded so dismal? i have been egotistic, then. i had hoped that perhaps you would write to me,” she added, and a delicately malicious little smile lit her face. odd looked hard at her, with a half-dreamy stare.

“i thought of you,” he said; “i should have liked to write.”

“well, in the future do, please, when you feel like it.”

mrs. archinard was extended on the sofa in the drawing-room when they reached the rue pierre charron. the crisp daintiness of pseudo-invalidism had withered to a look of sickly convalescence. she was much faded, and her little air of melancholy affectation pitifully fretful.

“you come before my own daughter, peter,” she said; “i don’t blame katherine, since hilda tells me that she did not let her know of my dangerous condition.”

“not dangerous, mamma,” hilda said, with a patient firmness not untouched by resentment, a touch to odd most new and pleasing. “the doctor had perfect confidence in me, and would have told me. i should have sent for papa and katherine the moment he thought it advisable. under the circumstances they could have done nothing for you that i did not do.” hilda had, indeed, rather distorted facts to shield katherine. what would mrs. archinard have said had she known that katherine, in answer to a letter begging her to return, had replied that she could not? even in hilda’s charitable heart that “could not” had rankled. odd’s despairing gloom discerned something of this truth, as he realized that the uncharacteristic self-justification was prompted by a rebellion against misinterpretation before him. mrs. archinard showed some nervous surprise.

“very well, very well, hilda,” she said, “i am sure i ask no sacrifices on my account. one may die alone as one has lived—alone. my life has trained me in stoicism. you had better wash your face, hilda. there is a great smudge of charcoal on your cheek,” and, as hilda turned and walked out, “i have looked on the face of the king of terrors, peter. peter! dear old homely name! the faithful ring in it! it is easy for hilda to talk! i make no complaint. she has nursed me excellently well—as far as her nursing went. but she has a hard soul! no tenderness! no sympathy! to leave her dying mother every afternoon! to sacrifice me to her painting! at such a time! ah me!” large tears rolled down mrs. archinard’s cheeks, and her voice trembled with weakness and self-pity. odd, in his raging resentment, could have exploded the truth upon her; the tears arrested his impulse, and he sat moodily gazing at the floor. mrs. archinard raised her lace-edged handkerchief and delicately touched away the tears.

“i have given my whole life, my whole life, peter, for my girls! i have borne this long exile from my home for their sakes!” at allersley mrs. archinard had never ceased complaining of her restricted lot, and had characterized her neighbors as “yokels and philistines.” speaking with her handkerchief pressed by her finger-tips upon her eyelids, she continued, “i have asked nothing of them but sympathy; that i have craved! and in my hour of need—“ mrs. archinard’s point de venise bosom heaved once more. odd took her hand with the unwilling yet pitying kindness one would show towards a silly and unpleasant child.

“i don’t think you are quite fair,” he said; “hilda looks as badly as you do. she has had a heavy load to carry.”

“i told her again and again to get a garde-malade, two if necessary.” mrs. archinard’s voice rose to a higher key. “she has chosen to ruin her appearance by sitting up to all hours of the night, and by working all day in that futile studio.”

“garde-malades are expensive.” odd could not restrain his voice’s edge.

“expensive! for a dying mother! and with all that is lavished on her studio—canvases, paints, models!”

the depths of misconception were too hopelessly great, and, as mrs. archinard’s voice had now become shrilly emphatic, he kept silence, his heart shaken with misery and with pity, despairing pity for hilda. she re-entered presently, wearing on her face too evident signs of contrition. she spoke to her mother in tones of gentle entreaty, humored her sweetly, gayly even, while she made tea.

“you know i cannot touch cake, hilda.”

“there are buttered brioches, mamma, piping hot.”

“properly buttered, i hope. rosalie usually places a great clot in the centre, leaving the edges uneatable.”

“mamma is like the princess who felt the pea through all the dozens of mattresses, isn’t she?” said hilda, smiling at odd. “but i buttered these with scientific exactitude.”

“exactitude! ah! the mirage of science! more milk, more milk!” mrs. archinard raised herself on one elbow to watch with expectant disapproval the concoction of her tea, and, relapsing on her cushions as the tea was brought to her, “i suppose it is milk, though i prefer cream.”

“no, it’s cream.” hilda should know, as she had herself just darted round the corner to the crêmerie. odd sprang up to take his cup from her. he thought she looked in danger of falling to the ground.

“do sit down,” he said in a low voice; “you look very, very badly.”

“have you read meredith’s last?” asked mrs. archinard from the sofa. “hilda is reading it to me in the evenings. we began it, ah! long, long ago. i have sympathy for meredith, an intimité! it is so i feel, see things—super-subtly. strange how coarsely objective some minds are! did you order the oysters for my dinner, hilda, and the ice from gagé’s—pistache? i hope you impressed pistache. you will dine with hilda, of course, peter; i have my dinner here; i am not yet strong enough to sit through a meal. and then you must talk to me about meredith. i always find you most suggestive—such new lights on old things. and verhaeren, too; do you care for verhaeren? morbid? yes, perhaps, but that is a truism—not like you, peter. ‘les apparus dans mes chemins,’ poor, modern, broken, bleeding soul! we must talk of verhaeren. just now i feel very sleepy. you will excuse me if i simply sans gêne turn over and take a nap? i can often sleep at this hour. hilda, show peter the burne-jones chaucer over there. hilda doesn’t find him limpid, sweet, healthy enough for chaucer; but nous sommes tous les enfants malades nowadays. there is a beauty, you know, in that. talk it over.”

hilda and peter sat down obediently side by side on the distant little canapé before the burne-jones chaucer. they went over the pages, not paying much attention to the woodcuts, but looking down favorite passages together. the description of “my swete” in “the book of the duchess,” the complaint of poor troilus, and, once more, arcite’s death. the quiet room was very quiet, and they looked up from the pages now and then to smile, perhaps a little sadly, at one another. when the dinner was announced hilda said, as they went into the dining-room—

“if your courage fails you, just say so frankly. i have very childish tastes and childish fare.”

indeed, half a cold chicken and a dish of rice constituted the repast. a bottle of claret stood by odd’s place, and there was a white jar filled with buttercups on the table; but even rosalie seemed depressed by the air of meagreness, and gave them a rather effaré glance as they sat down. odd suspected that the cold chicken was in his honor. he had come to the conclusion that hilda was capable of dining off rice alone.

“delightful!” he said. the chicken and rice were indeed very good, but hilda saw that he ate very little.

“i make no further apologies,” she said, smiling at him over the buttercups; “your hunger be upon your own head.”

“i am not hungry, dear.”

hilda had to do most of the talking, but they were both rather silent. it was a happy silence to hilda, full of a loving trust.

when he spoke, it was in a voice of the same gentle fatigue that his eyes showed; but as the eyes rested upon her she felt that the past and the present had surely joined hands.