During these remarks, Odd felt himself shaking with rage. If Katherine had been a man he would have knocked her down; as it was, his voice was the equivalent of a blow as he said, clenching his hand on the back of a chair-- "You despicable creature!" He and Katherine glared at one another. "Only the higher nature can put itself so hideously in the power of the lower," Odd went on; "and you dare!" "No, no; all she says may be true!" moaned Hilda. She dropped upon the sofa and hid her face in her hands, adding brokenly: "And how can you be so cruel? so cruel to her? She loves you too!" Katherine turned savagely upon her sister, and then, impulse nipped by quick reflection-- "You need not allow for a woman's jealousy, Mr. Odd. Don't, no indeed you must not, flatter yourself with my broken heart. I don't like humiliation for myself or for others. I don't like to scorn my sister whom I trusted, whom I loved. I could have killed the person who had told me this of her! My humiliation, my scorn, make me too bitter for charity. But I give you back your word without one regret for myself. You have killed my love very effectually." "Was there ever much to kill, Katherine?" "That is ignoble, quite as ignoble as I could predict of you. Hilda's lesson must necessarily make the past look pale." "I can only hope that you do yourself an injustice by such base speeches, Katherine." "Your example has been contagious." "Let me think so by proving yourself more worthy than you seem. Ask your sister's forgiveness--as I ask yours--humbly. She has not feared humiliation." "I do not find myself in a position to fear or accept it. I found Hilda in the dust, and I cannot forgive her for having fallen there. Her poor confession was no atonement. And now, Mr. Odd, I make an exit more apropos than my entrance, and leave you with her." Katherine took up her wrap and walked out without looking again at Hilda. "And I have done this," said Odd. Hilda lay motionless, her face upon her arms, and he approached her. There was a strange effect of no Hilda at all under the heavy folds of the gown; in the dark it glimmered with a vacant whiteness; it was as though the cruel words had beaten away her body and her soul. "Hilda!" said Odd, broken-heartedly, hesitating as he paused beside her, not daring to touch the still figure. "Hilda!" he repeated; "if only you will forgive me; if only you will own that it is I, I only who need forgiveness, and unsay those mad words that gave her the power! Oh! that she should have had the power! She has made remorse impossible!" Odd added, addressing himself rather than Hilda, whose silence offered no hint of sympathy. "Why did you put yourself under her feet and make me powerless?" he asked; "you know that your gentle reticence had for months kept my love in check; you knew that had I kept at your level, you would have never realized that you loved me." He bent above her and kissed her hand. "Precious one! Dearest, dearest child."