"Pshaw! That's all feminine folly, you know. She probably saw some one she liked better, some bigger match. Katherine isn't the girl to throw over a man like Odd for a whim." Hilda's flush was now as much for her father as for herself. She felt her cheeks burning as she said, her voice trembling-- "Papa, papa! How can you say such a thing of Katherine! How can you! I know it is not true. I know it!" "Oh, very well, if you are in her secrets. I know Katherine pretty well though, and it's not unimaginable. I don't imply anything vulgar." The Captain rose as he spoke and swung his basket into place; "that's not conceivable in my daughter. But Katherine's ambitious, very ambitious. As for you, Hilda--and all that, you know--I am awfully sorry, you understand." The Captain walked away briskly, satisfied at having eased his conscience. Odd had made it feel uncomfortably swollen and unwieldy, and the Captain's conscience was, by nature, slim and flexible. Hilda lay in her chair, and looked at the river running brightly beyond the branches of the lime-tree under which she sat. The flush of misery that her father's cool suppositions on Katherine's conduct had seemed to strike into her face, only died slowly. She had to turn from that shame resolutely, contemplation would only deepen its helplessness. She looked at the river, and thought of the time when she had stood beside it with Odd and recited Chaucer to him. She thought of the humorous droop of his eyelids, the kind, comprehensive clasp of his hand on hers; the look of the hand too, long, brown, delicate, the finger-tips too dainty for a man, and the dark green seal on his finger. Hilda turned her head away from the river and closed her eyes. "Allone, withouten any companye," that was the fated motto of her life. CHAPTER XIII By the end of June, returning physical strength gave Hilda the wish to seek self-forgetful effort of some kind. She tried to busy herself with something--with anything--and experienced the odd sensation of a person upon whom duty has always pressed and crowded, in a futile search for duty. The stern, sweet helper eluded her, the unreality of manufactured, unnecessary activity appalled her. She regretted the strenuous days of labor that meant something. Taking herself to task for a weak submission to circumstance, she fitted up a large room at the top of the house with artistic apparatus; nice models were easily lured from the village; she told herself that art at least remained, and tried to absorb herself in her painting; but the savor of keen interest was gone; the pink cheeks and staring eyes of her village girl were annoying. Hilda felt more like crying than trying to select from and modify her buxom charms.