Miss Hildreth

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each country has its own peculiar influences, dangers, casualties, but some countries have the two former more developed. Russia, for example; in Russia one instinctively looks for dangers, intrigues, conspiracies. Has Miss Hildreth ever been to Russia, Mr. Tremain?"
Miss James was treating the subject with so much gravity and impressiveness that Philip felt himself carried along with her, and inclined to look at Patricia's past career and its attendant trivialities in a serious and grave light. ”

“ The Folly, the Deerhound, and Esther Newbold, as the mistress of both, were fully canvassed, together with Miss Darling's openly expressed anger at being detained by the accusing party to give special evidence, and Mr. Tremain's extraordinary conduct in refusing to act as Miss Hildreth's solicitor; while Patricia's private life, her jewels, wealth, and beauty, were scarcely more absorbing topics than were the treachery, blackheartedness and ingratitude of Vladimir Mellikoff ”

“ Patricia Hildreth's face was not good to look upon, as she read his response; if ever mortified vanity and determined revenge was readable on a woman's countenance, it was to be seen on hers then.
"So I have humbled myself in vain," she said. "Well, it shall be your turn next, my Philip, or my woman's wit is of no account; you shall feel the same sting as you have given me, incased in your armour of pride and well-being though you may be. Take care, Philip, my hand is small but it is firm to strike, and he is most lost who thinks himself invulnerable to a woman's charms." ”

“ We all have our feminine enemies without doubt; but who of us can put our finger on the most venomous of them?"
"All the same we must find this one, Patricia; when we find her we shall perhaps unearth the secret of her spleen. I am convinced Count Mellikoff has a woman for his ally."
Miss Hildreth shrugged her shoulders, but made no further reply. Presently, however, she turned a little more towards him, leaning still further across the table, and looking full into his eyes, said, with sudden directness:
"Why do you ask nothing concerning your friend, Adèle Lamien, Philip? ”

“ In the furtherance of this object circumstances arose which, in Miss Hildreth's opinion, made it necessary for her to adopt another character than her own; to enter, in fact, upon a little play-acting, in which she personated the sole character. What more natural than that she should make use of the name and disguise of the lady she had so lately protected? As Adèle Lamien—a foreigner and dependent, with the suspicion of a tragic past to give effect to the present—she could enter without fear of detection upon the delicate mission she had marked out for herself. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Newbold was placed. She knew what the consequences would be were Miss Hildreth's Quixotic protection of the real Adèle Lamien to become known, and she already had her suspicions regarding Count Mellikoff: she alone rightly estimated the danger run by Miss Hildreth in personating one who was a fugitive from justice.
"As to the part Miss James had played in the whole matter, he should be sorry to call it by its right name; he believed there was no enmity so bitter or treacherous as the enmity of a jealous woman. ”

“ Tremain did not appear as Miss Hildreth's solicitor, nor, indeed, take any active part in her behalf. It was John Mainwaring who was selected by Patricia as her adviser, and to John Mainwaring she opened her whole heart; holding nothing back, and in no way excusing or exonerating herself for the part she had played in the plot, that bid fair to develop all the characteristics of tragedy before its termination. She bound the young lawyer by the most solemn of promises not to reveal certain portions of her confession, although the consequences of his secrecy might be the worst possible for her. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ The public pulse stood at fever height, and public opinion, with its usual consistency, was veering round in favour of Vladimir Mellikoff. Miss Hildreth had been chief favourite when the inquiry opened, but Miss Hildreth's chances for keeping that position looked scarcely favourable now, judging from public expressions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had known Miss Hildreth for ten years; yes, at one time they had been engaged to be married. The interview described by Miss James had certainly taken place between him and Mdlle. Lamien; he had no wish to repudiate his position; at the end of the interview he considered himself engaged to Mdlle. Lamien; nothing had since occurred to alter his relations towards her. He had been out of town from August to September; his orders were that no letters or papers should be forwarded to him. He returned to New York on the evening of the 8th of September ”

“ 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." ”