"How futile to mourn over death," Mrs. Archinard sighed from her sofa. "Tangled as we are in the webs of temperament, and environment, and circumstance, should we not rather rejoice at the release from the great illusion?" Mrs. Archinard laid down a dreary French novel and vaguely yawned, while the Captain muttered something about talking "rot" before the children. "Move this lamp away, Hilda," said Mrs. Archinard. "I think I can take a nap now, if Katherine will put on the soft pedal." It was a warm autumn night, and the windows were open. Hilda slipped out when she had moved the lamp away. She could not go by the country road, nor scramble through the hedge, but to climb over the wall would be an easy matter. Hilda ran over the lawn, across the meadows, and through the woods. In the uncanny darkness her white dress glimmered like the flitting wings of a moth. As she came to the wall the moon seemed to slide from behind a cloud. Hilda's heart stood still with a sudden terror at her loneliness there in the wood at night. The boy-like vault over the wall gave her an impetus of courage, and she began to run, feeling, as she ran, that the courage was only mechanical, that the moon, the mystery of a dimly seen infinity of tree trunks, the sorrow holding her heart as if in a physical pressure, were all terrible and terrifying. But Hilda, on occasions, could show an indomitable moral courage even while her body quaked, and she ran all the half-mile from the boundary wall to Allersley Manor without stopping. There was a light in the library window; even at a distance she had seen it glowing between the trees. She ran more slowly over the lawn, and paused on the gravel path outside the library to get her breath. Yes, _he_ was there alone. She looked into the dignified quiet of the fine old room. A tall lamp threw a strong light on the pages of the book he held, and his head was in shadow. The window was ajar, and Hilda pushed it open and went in. At the sound Odd glanced up, and his face took on a look of half incredulous stupefaction. Hilda's white face, tossed hair, the lamentable condition of her muslin frock, made of her indeed a startling apparition. "My dear Hilda!" he exclaimed. Hilda pressed her palms together, and stared silently at him. Mr. Odd's face looked so much older; its gravity made her heart stand still with an altogether new sense of calamity. She stood helplessly before him, tears brimming to her eyes. "My dear child, what is the matter? You positively frightened me." "I came to say 'Good-bye,'" said Hilda brokenly. Peter's gravity was mere astonishment and sympathetic dismay. The tear-brimmed eyes, after his weeks of solitary brooding, filled him with a most exquisite rush of pity and tenderness. "Come here, you dear child," he said, holding out his arms to her; "you came to say 'Good-bye?' I am very grateful to you."