They never feel those sharp thrusts close to the
heart that tell us how quickly one thrust a little sharper than the
others would end all. They do not lie awake in the hours of the night
counting the blows of the cruel little hammer that beats its prison to
pieces at last and is broken in the ruin of the breast that confined
it. And the world counts it all to them for dulness and lack of
delicate feeling, with little discernment and less justice, until the
day when it sees them roused by such passions as alone can rouse them,
or suffering such deadly pain as only the strongest can live to suffer.
The baroness came back in a few minutes and stood beside Hilda, laying
her hand upon her daughter's forehead, and bending down.
'What did he say to you, child?' she asked.
'He said that he would not marry me because it would be a shame that I
should be called Greifenstein after what has happened.'
'That was what he told me,' replied her mother, leaving her and taking
up a piece of needlework that lay on the table. She could not be idle.
'That was what he told me,' she repeated thoughtfully. 'And I answered
that he was mistaken.'
'He said you had done your best to persuade him,' said Hilda, and then
relapsed into silence.
'Do you know what I did?' she asked presently.
'I suppose you told him that you did not care for such things as
names.'
'Yes--I said that. But I took his hands, and I told him that I would
not let him go. I think I was very angry at something, but not at him.
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