"Well, after that day in Florence, the last cranny of my prison seemed walled up. And--oh, then our troubles came, worse and worse. Responsibilities braced me up--far healthier, of course. And your books! Their strength; their philosophy--don't tell me I might find it all in Marcus Aurelius; your way of saying it went more deeply in me. Just to do one's duty; to love people and be sorry for them, and not snivel over oneself. Ah! if you knew all your books had been to me! Would you like it, I wonder?" Again the tenderness, almost playful, in her voice. Odd raised his head and looked at her. "And when I came at last, what did you think?" The loving candor of her eyes dwelt on him. "When you came?" she repeated. "Then I saw at once that you were Katherine's friend, and that your books were the nearest I should ever get to you." Hilda's voice hesitated a little; a doubt of the exactitude of her perceptions from this point showed itself in a certain perplexity of tone. "And--I don't quite understand myself, for I didn't plan anything--but just because I felt so much I was afraid that you would imagine I made claims on you. I was resolved that you should see that I had reached your standpoint--that I had forgotten--that the present had no connection with the past." "But I had not forgotten," Odd groaned. "No?" Hilda smiled rather lightly; "it would have been very strange if you hadn't. Besides, as I say, I saw at once that you were Katherine's, and that it was right and natural. Your books taught me, too, the true peace of renunciation, you see! Not that this called for renunciation exactly," and again Hilda paused with the faint look of perplexity. "There was nothing to renounce since you were hers, except I must have felt a certain disappointment. I felt a little frozen. Such dull egotism!" She turned her eyes away, looking vaguely out into the dusky room. "But even on that first day I meant that you should see, and that she should see, that I knew that the past made no bond: in my heart it might, not in yours, I knew, for all your kindness." "Go on, Hilda," said Odd, as she paused.