ecret terrors of conscience. And how could she meet the calm eyes of
one who found her here in such a relation toward him? Yet all this
she had weighed before in her mind; she was not unprepared. The hour
and the man had come. She was found ready.

She regarded the maid for a few moments in silence. At last she
spoke.

"Very well," she said, coldly, and without any perceptible emotion of
any kind. "I will go down to meet his lordship."

His lordship has just arrived! The words had been spoken, and the
speaker had departed, but the words still echoed and re-echoed
through the soul of the hearer. What might this involve? and what
would be the end of this arrival?

Suddenly she stepped to the door and called the maid.

"Has any one accompanied his lordship?"

"No, my lady."

"He came alone?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Did Mr. M'Kenzie see him?"

"No, my lady. He is not in the house."

Hilda closed the door, went back, and again stood before the mirror.
Some time elapsed as she stood there regarding herself, with strange
thoughts passing through her mind. She did not find it necessary,
however, to make any alterations in her appearance. She did not
change one fold in her attire, or vary one hair of her head from its
place. It was as though this present dress and this present
appearance had been long ago decided upon by her for just such a
meeting as this. Whether she had anticipated such a meeting so
suddenly--whether she was amazed or not--whether she was at all taken
by surprise or not, could not appear in any way from her action or
her demeanor. In the face of so terrible a crisis, whose full meaning
and import she must have felt profoundly, she stood there, calm and
self-contained, with the self-poise of one who has been long
prepared, and who, when the hour big with fate at last may come, is
not overwhelmed, but rises with the occasion, goes forth to the
encounter, and prepares to contend with destiny.

It was, perhaps, about half an hour before Hilda went down. She went
with a steady step and a calm face down the long corridor, down the
great stairway, through the chief hall, and at length entered the
drawing-room.

On entering she saw a tall man standing there, with his back turned
toward the door, looking up at a portrait of the late Earl. So
intently was he occupied that he did not hear her entering; but a
slight noise, made by a chair as she passed it, startled him, and he
turned and looked at her, disc