``Has it made you worse to come, dear?'' Hilda asked anxiously.
``Are you sick?''

``Sick?'' he said in a hollow voice. ``My soul is sick--dying.
My God! My God!'' An impressive pause. ``Ah, child, you do not
know what suffering is--you who have lived only in these simple,
humble surroundings.''

Hilda was trembling with apprehension. ``What is it, Carl? You
can tell me. Let me help you bear it.''

``No! no! I must bear it alone. I must take my dark shadow from
your young life. I ought not to have come. I should have fled.
But love makes me a coward.''

``But I love you, Carl,'' she said gently.

``And I have missed you--dreadfully, dreadfully!''

He rolled his eyes wildly. ``You torture me!'' he exclaimed,
seizing her hand in a dead man's clutch. ``How CAN I speak?''

Hilda's heart seemed to stand still. She was pale to the lips,
and he could see, even in the darkness, her eyes grow and
startle.

``What is it?'' she murrmured. ``You know I--can bear anything
for you.''