"And you felt disappointed?"

"At first, yes; or, rather, bewildered--utterly unable to
understand you."

"You are disappointed still?" she asked.

"I wouldn't have you anything but what you are."

"Still, that other girl was the one you _wished_ to meet."

"Yes, before I had seen you. It was the sort of resemblance between
her life and my own. I thought of sympathy between us. And the face
of the portrait--but I see better things in the face that is
looking at me now."

"Don't be quite sure of that--yes, perhaps. It's better to be
healthy, and enjoy life, than broken-spirited and hopeless. The
strange thing is that you were right--you fancied me just the kind
of a girl I was: sad and solitary, and shrinking from people--true
enough. And I went to chapel, and got comfort from it--as I hope
to do again. Don't think that I have no religion. But I was so
unhealthy, and suffered so in every way. Work and anxiety without
cease, from when I was twelve years old. You know all about my
father? If I hadn't been clever at figures, what would have become
of me? I should have drudged at some wretched occupation until the
work and the misery of everything killed me."

Hilliard listened intently, his eyes never stirring from her face.