Hildreth

“ Baxter even to call her by her first name of Hildreth ... during that brief visit....
Hildreth Baxter was always moving about leisurely, gracefully, like some strange, pretty animal. Not shy, just indifferent, as if processes of thought were going on inside of her that made an inner world that sufficed, to the exclusion of all exterior happenings.
She had a beautiful small head with heavy dark hair; large, brown, thoughtful eyes ... a face so strong as to be handsome rather than beautiful. She walked about in bloomers, languidly conscious that her legs were graceful and lovely.... ”

“ Miss Hildreth had passed the greater part of that time abroad, and his news of her had not only been meagre but nil, for after the first few weeks of her absence, during which her name had been on every one's lips, coupled with her broken engagement, and her inherited fortune, it was rarely mentioned, and never in Philip's presence.
The most perfectly controlled human heart cannot so entirely root up envy and malice as not to cavil somewhat at the perversity of Providence, in showering benefits with both hands upon a fellow mortal, who certainly cannot so thoroughly deserve them as oneself. ”

“ How can I put any other construction upon your conduct, save that of wilful and wanton cruelty, when I remember, that twice as Miss Hildreth, you refused me, scorning my love; and then, that only a few short hours afterwards, as Adèle Lamien you accepted me, and all I had to offer—accepted me, with a lie upon your lips, and deceit in your smile. Have you no explanation to give me, Patricia? Oh, my dear, I will accept any pretext you may offer; only make some little excuse, no matter how trivial, for the duplicity of your conduct. ”

“ Miss Hildreth laughed again, and wiping her slender finger-tips upon a tiny square of lace and muslin, from whose folds an odour of violets stole forth, she answered in an even lighter tone:
"My dear Philip, let me recommend to you a certain essay on the 'Art of Forgetting,' if you have not already read it. It is written by a modern philosopher, it is true, but nevertheless, he sounds the heights and depths of our social system, and evolves a theory therefrom for which he should receive an universal peerage, bestowed upon him by his indebted fellow-sufferers. ”

“ That woman yonder, that dark, silent, motionless figure, with the clasped hands and the pallid beautiful face, was Patricia Hildreth—the woman of his life-long devotion, the love of his youth and his manhood—and she was charged with what? Murder! ”

“ Miss Hildreth walked out of the court-room with the same firm tread and upright bearing with which she had entered it; Judge Anstice disappeared through a private door, and his withdrawal was followed by the instantaneous appearance, on every side, of sandwich-boxes and lunch-baskets. The ladies under George Newbold's escort regaled themselves on chickens' wings and "cup;" the humbler crowd making audible comments thereon over their humbler fare. ”

“ With something of the feeling of a surgeon who nerves himself to bury the steel in his patient's quivering flesh, he gave his response unhesitatingly.
"A gentleman's, I believe. A young man connected with her, in some strange way, by financial interests. A Mr. Hildreth, of Toledo—Gouverneur Hildreth, I think they call him."
It was not the name she expected. He saw this by the relaxation that took place in all her features, by the look of almost painful relief that flashed for a moment into the eyes she turned like lightning upon him. ”

“ Hildreth's voice broke the silence.
"Evadne?" the Judge looked full in his wife's face. "Why, my dear, there is only one thing to be done. I shall cable immediately to have her come to us." He rose from the table, his dinner all untasted, and left the room.
Louis was the first to speak. "A Barbadoes cousin. How will you like having such a novelty as that, Sis, to introduce among your acquaintance?" He bowed lazily to Mrs. Hildreth. "Let me congratulate you, lady mother. You will have the pleasure of floating another bud into blossom upon the bosom of society." ”

“ And Mainwaring, being a man of quick sympathies and ardent chivalry, had, under the spell of her beauty and her emotion, passed his word of honour to use only such particulars of her statement, in her support, as she should designate.
"I think you are mistaken," he had said, after urging a greater latitude upon her, "I cannot say how far your reticence may not tell against you. I wish you would be quite frank with me, Miss Hildreth, or rather let me be on your behalf. ”

“ This convulsed Hildreth.
"You great, big, sweet fool of a poet, I do love you, I really do!"
"We were made for each other in every way ... my head just fits your shoulder," she observed quaintly.
"Mubby came down to me this morning," said Hildreth one evening, "and pleaded to be taken back again ... as husband...."
"And what?—"
"What did I do?... when I love you?... the mere idea made me sick to think of. I couldn't endure him again."
One afternoon Penton and Hildreth were closeted together from lunch to dark. It was my turn to cry out in my heart, and suffer agonies of imagination. ”

“ A breath of the past was mingled with the present, and bore along with it the scent of fresh grass, a mingled perfume of fruit and flowers, a vision of flowing muslin draperies, a lithe, graceful figure, dark, lustreless hair crowning a proud little head, eyes of deepest violet shaded by black, pencilled brows and lashes, a face whose almost dusky colouring flushed in an instant into richest carmine when deeply moved.
Ten years had gone by since Philip Tremain, a young barrister struggling for briefs, idle, clever, lazy, and cursed with expectations of money, first met Patricia Hildreth. ”

“ Tremain's face at the mention of Patricia's name.
"Ah, Miss Hildreth," he replied, with assumed carelessness. "I had not taken her into consideration."
"And yet Miss Hildreth is not one to be left unconsidered?" said Miss James, questioningly. "She is not one to be easily passed over." Then, with a sudden change of manner, she added: "You have known Miss Hildreth a long time, have you not, Mr. Tremain?"
Philip looked down at her a little startled and surprised. Was she laughing at him—this pale, quiet, almost insignificant girl—or mocking him? ”

“ This girl loved Philip, and knowing her passion to be hopeless, she had sought out, with the unfailing prescience of slighted love, the woman who was her rival, hoping that in striking at her she would also wound the man who had rejected her. Love is proverbially cruel, none knew this truth better than Miss Hildreth; it was, therefore, with a strange illogical sympathy that she listened to Miss James's defamation of her. ”

“ Hildreth came furtively back, too, from the little cottage, like a guilty child. She apologized to Darrie, and her apology was accepted, and, in a few minutes we were talking ahead as gaily as before....
We rehearsed Hildreth in her part as Titania ... for that was the part she was to play in The Mid-Summer Night's Dream, that the Actors' Guild of the colony was to put on in their outdoor theatre, a week from that afternoon ... Hildreth insisted on dressing for the part ... in her green, skin tights ... letting her black hair flow free ... wearing even her diadem, as fairy queen. ”

“ Ah, very well, let us say no more about it: only when next you see Miss Hildreth and Count Mellikoff together, watch his manner towards her, and see for yourself if he carries himself as a stranger to her. Ten years is a long time for a woman to wander about the world alone. ”

“ Helmstedt, was a good-looking, comfortable, matronly woman, over forty years of age, very much like her brother Forrest in the largeness of her form, and the shining darkness of her skin, as well as in her devoted attachment to her mistress. She was a widow, and the mother of four stalwart boys, who were engaged upon the fisheries belonging to the island. For the rest, Hildreth was an uncharitable moralist, and a strict disciplinarian, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children in her bitter intolerance of mulattoes. ”

“ Miss James had urged Count Mellikoff to greater haste in the matter; she had seemed consumed with hatred of Miss Hildreth. Oh, yes, he knew quite well what it meant to hate any one; he hated Count Mellikoff, and was glad to pay him back for some of his haughty insolence. He had known from the beginning of the inquiry that Miss Hildreth was not Adèle Lamien, but he had had no absolute proof of it until that morning. ”

“ It was as he had warned Patricia it would be; the instant he touched delicate and doubtful ground and advanced a theory in support of which he could produce no proofs, that instant the entente cordiale failed him. The public likes to believe in its own strict integrity, and its abhorrence of anything not honest and above-board, and to have so extravagant a story as this masquerading of Miss Hildreth's thrust down its throat, accompanied by such lame excuses as sealed lips and secret promises, was not at all to its taste. ”

“ Finish reading the poem to Hildreth ... I think I have been too harsh in my judgment of both of you ... only please do be more discreet, if only for appearance's sake, in the future....
"Sit down where you were. I wish to show that I trust you both....
"Good-night, Hildreth!" and he kissed his wife in fond contrition.
"Good-night, Johnnie ... forgive me!"
And he wavered out at the door, his face set in pain.
As soon as he had gone I rose swiftly.
"And now I must go."
"If you men aren't the funniest things!" she caught me by the hand, detaining me ... "not yet ... wait a minute. ”

“ What was more likely than that during one of the frequent visits paid by Miss Hildreth to the villa outside St. Petersburg, she should have taken in mistake one of the unfortunate Adèle Lamien's handkerchiefs, and, on seeing her error, have remarked it carelessly with her own initials; or that after a time the bit of muslin should have found its way back to its rightful owner? As to the second handkerchief, that was a very simple riddle; Miss Hildreth had in her possession many articles of dress belonging to Adèle Lamien, having required them in her first disguise as that lady. ”

“ Whenever he was brought face to face with Patricia, and listened to her clear, calm voice, he felt himself carried away by the very attitude of her pleading. He saw things only from her point of view, and was ready to acquiesce and agree with her, however over-strained he considered her arguments. But when he was away from her, and without the radius of her personal influence, he was apt to anathematise himself in unparliamentary language, and to wish Miss Hildreth's selection of a lawyer had fallen on some one less susceptible to impressions. ”

“ Ten years is a very long time; long enough to drink deep of experience; long enough to plant, and sow, and reap. Long enough to lose more than one friend, make more than one enemy; long enough to sink oneself to the neck in intrigue, and to bury oneself in crime. May not Miss Hildreth have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and found the evil overweigh the good? May not Count Mellikoff have been her friend, and become her enemy? Is it not possible that each is striving to outwit the other, and each is afraid of the other? ”

“ Miss Hildreth took in the situation at a glance, and laughed out at him, one of her cold light mocking laughs, that angered Philip with its ring of insincerity.
"Well, my Knight of the Rueful Countenance," she exclaimed, "you look not only bored, but in a rage! Ah, my dear Philip, when will you learn how foolish and banale a thing it is to expend your reserve emotions on trifles? We Americans are accused of being a race incapable of experiencing any grand passion, either in conception or realisation. ”

“ In his eyes all women should be, like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion, and it hurt and galled him that even a shadow of aspersion should rest on Patricia's fair fame.
And yet, as Miss James had said, ten years was a long time, and Miss Hildreth gave no explanation, beyond a vague and general one, as to how she had spent that time. Might there not be some secret bound up in those years; some secret between herself and Vladimir Mellikoff, which it was wisest to leave so buried? Was it possible of belief that in all that time Patricia had never consoled herself for the lost love of her youth? ”

“ You must acknowledge that Patricia's conduct in refusing me repeatedly, as Miss Hildreth, and then accepting me, as Adèle Lamien, requires a little explanation. It is not over pleasant to one's amour propre to feel that one has been duped; but to have been duped wantonly, is more than unpleasant—it approaches insult. ”

“ I was hot with shame to the very ears, "you see—there, you know,—I thought if I went there I would find some pretty little French girl that I would take to live with me ... in some romantic attic in the Montmartre district ... and we would be happy together ... and I would be grateful, so grateful, to her!"
"Why you're the Saint Francis of the Radicals," Hildreth exclaimed.
"Please don't make fun of me ... I suppose you think me very foolish."
"Foolish?... No, I think you have a very beautiful soul. I wish every man had a soul like that." ”

“ He looked at it fondly for a moment.
"Eccelo!" he exclaimed, "'tis a little thing with which to save one woman's life, and yet big enough to kill another!"
Then he handed the missive up to the Judge, and stood waiting further developments.
The sensation caused by the Italian's statement was beyond all precedent; the excitement of the crowd burst all restraints; it seemed as though, having once doubted Patricia Hildreth, they could not now be loud enough in vociferating her innocence. ”