Lord Chetwynde seemed to have ended; for he arose and sauntered up to the portrait, which he regarded for some time with fixed attention, and appeared to lose himself in his thoughts. During the remarks which he had been making Hilda had sat looking at the floor. Unable to encounter the stern gaze of the man whom she felt to be her master, she had listened in silence, with downcast eyes. There was nothing for her to say. She therefore did the very best thing that she could do under the circumstances--she said nothing. Nor did she say any thing when he had ended. She saw him absorb himself in regarding his own portrait, and apparently lose himself in his recollections of the past. Of her he seemed to have now no consciousness. She sat looking at him, as his side face was turned toward her, and his eyes fixed on the picture. The noble profile, with its clear-cut features, showed much of the expression of the face--an expression which was stern, yet sad and softened--that face which, just before, had been before her eyes frowning, wrathful, clothed with consuming terrors--a face upon which she could not look, but which now was all mournful and sorrowful. And now, as she gazed, the hard rigidity of her beautiful features relaxed, the sharp glitter of her dark eyes died out, their stony lustre gave place to a soft light, which beamed upon him with wonder, with timid awe--with something which, in any other woman, would have looked like tenderness. She had not been prepared for one like this. In her former ideas of him he had been this boy of the portrait, with his boyish enthusiasm, and his warm, innocent temperament. This idea she had relinquished, and had known that he had changed during the years into the heroic soldier and the calm judge. She had tried to familiarize herself with this new idea, and had succeeded in doing so to a certain extent. But, after all, the reality had been too much for her. She had not been prepared for one like this, nor for such an effect as the sight of him had produced. At this first interview he had overpowered her utterly, and she had sat dumb and motionless before him. All the sneering speeches which she had prepared in anticipation of the meeting were useless. She found no place for them. But there was one result to this interview which affected her still more deeply than this discovery of his moral superiority. The one great danger which she had always feared had passed away. She no longer had that dread fear of discovery which hitherto had harassed her; but in the place of this there suddenly arose another fear--a fear which seemed as terrible as the other, which darkened over her during the course of that scene till its close, and afterward--such an evil as she never before could have thought herself capable of dreading, yet one which she had brought upon herself. What was that? His contempt--his hate--his abhorrence--this was the thing which now seemed so terrible to her.