Nor did the girl give her any time to recover her presence of mind.
"There is only one thing more," she said, "I want you to have
breakfast as soon as you can, and then to let me have a carriage at
once."

"A carriage?" echoed the other.

"Yes, Aunt Polly, I wish to drive over to Hilltown immediately."

"To Hilltown!" gasped Aunt Polly with yet greater consternation, and
showing signs of resistance at last; "pray what--"

But Helen only came again to the attack, with yet more audacity and
confidence. "Yes," she said, "to Hilltown; I mean to go to see
Arthur."

For answer to that last statement, poor Mrs, Roberts had simply no
words whatever; she could only gaze, and in the meantime, Helen was
going calmly on with her dressing, as if the matter were settled.

"Will Mr. Howard be down to breakfast?" she asked.

"As he is going away to-day, I presume he will be down," was the
reply, after which Helen quickly completed her toilet, her aunt
standing by and watching her in the meantime.

"Helen, dear," she asked at last, after having recovered her
faculties a trifle, "do you really mean that you will not explain to
me a thing of what has happened, or of what you are doing?"

"There is so much, Aunt Polly, that I cannot possibly explain it
now; I have too much else to think of. You must simply let me go my
way, and I will tell you afterwards."

"But, Helen, is that the right way to treat me? Is it nothing to
you, all the interest that I have taken in this and all that I have
done for you, that you should think so little of my advice?"

"I do not need any advice now," was the answer. "Aunt Polly, I see
exactly what I should do, and I do not mean to stop a minute for
anything else until I have done it. If it seems unkind, I am very
sorry, but in the meantime it must be done."

And while she was saying the words, Helen was putting on her hat;
then taking up her parasol and gloves she turned towards her aunt.
"I am ready now," she said, "and please let me have breakfast just
as soon as you can."

The girl was so much preoccupied with her own thoughts and purposes
that she scarcely even heard what her aunt said; she went down into
the garden where she could be alone, and paced up and down
impatiently until she heard the bell. Then she went up into the
dining room, where she found her aunt and uncle in conversation with
Mr. Howard.

Helen had long been preparing herself to meet him, but she could not
keep her cheeks from flushing or keep from lowering her eyes; she
bit her lips together, however, and forced herself to look at him,
saying very resolutely, "Mr. Howard, I have to drive over to
Hilltown after breakfast, and I wish very much to talk to you about
something; would you like to drive with me?"

"Very much indeed," said he, quietly, after which Helen said not a
word more. She saw that her aunt and uncle were gazing at her and at
each other in silent wonder, but she paid no attention to it. After
eating a few hurried mouthfuls she excused herself, and rose and
went outside, where she saw the driving-cart which had been bought
for her use, waiting for her. It was not much longer before Mr.
Howard was ready, for he saw her agitation.

"It is rather a strange hour to start upon a drive," she said to
him, "but I have real cause for hurrying; I will explain about it."
And then she stopped, as her aunt came out to join them.

It was only a moment more before Mr. Howard had excused himself, and
the two were in the wagon, Helen taking the reins. She waved a
farewell to her aunt and then started the horse, and they were
whirled swiftly away down the road.

All the morning Helen's mind had been filled with things that she
wished to say to Mr. Howard. But now all her resolution seemed to
have left her, and she was trembling very much, and staring straight
ahead, busying herself with guiding the horse. When they were out
upon the main road where they might go as fast as they pleased
without that necessity, she swallowed the lump in her throat and
made one or two nervous attempts to speak.

Mr. Howard in the meantime had been gazing in front of him
thoughtfully. "Miss Davis," he said suddenly, turning his eyes upon
her, "may I ask you a question?"

"Yes," said Helen faintly.

"You heard all that I said about you last night?"

And Helen turned very red and looked away. "Yes, I heard it all,"
she said; and then there was a long silence.

It was broken by the man, who began in a low voice: "I scarcely know
how, Miss Davis, I can apologize to you--"

And then he stopped short, for the girl had turned her glance upon
him, wonderingly. "Apologize?" she said; she had never once thought
of that view of it, and the word took her by surprise.

"Yes," said Mr. Howard; "I said so many hard and cruel things that I
cannot bear to think of them."

Helen still kept her eyes fixed upon him, as she said, "Did you say
anything that was not true, Mr. Howard?"

The man hesitated a moment, and then he answered: "I said many
things that I had no right to say to you."

"That is not it," said Helen simply. "Did you say anything that was
not true?"

Again Mr. Howard paused. "I am quite sure that I did," he said at
last. "Most of what I said I feel to have been untrue since I have
seen how it affected you."

"Because it made me so ashamed?" said Helen. And then some of the
thoughts that possessed her forced their way out, and she hurried on
impetuously: "That was the first thing I wanted to tell you. It is
really true that you were wrong, for I am not hard-hearted at all.
It was something that my--that people were making me do, and all the
time I was wretched. It was dreadful, I know, but I was tempted,
because I do love beautiful things. And it was all so sudden, and I
could not realize it, and I had nobody to advise me, for none of the
people I meet would think it was wrong. You must talk to me and help
me, because I've got to be very strong; my aunt will be angry, and
when I get back perhaps Mr. Harrison will be there, and I shall have
to tell him."

Then the girl stopped, out of breath and trembling with excitement;
Mr. Howard turned abruptly and fixed his dark eyes upon her.

"Tell him," he said. "Tell him what?"

"That I shall not marry him, of course," answered Helen; the other
gave a start, but she was so eager that she did not even notice it.
"I could not lose a minute," she said. "For it was so very dreadful,
you know."

"And you really mean not to marry him?" asked the other.

"Mean it!" echoed the girl, opening her eyes very wide. "Why, how in
the world could you suppose--" And then she stopped short, and
laughed nervously. "Of course," she said, "I forgot; you might
suppose anything. But, oh, if I could tell you how I have suffered,
Mr. Howard, you would understand that I could never have such a
thought again in the world. Please do understand me, for if I had
really been so base I should not come to you as I do after what I
heard. I cannot tell you how dreadfully I suffered while I was
listening, but after I had cried so much about it, I felt better,
and it seemed to me that it was the best thing that could have
happened to me, just to see my actions as they seemed to someone
else,--to someone who was good. I saw all at once the truth of what
I was doing, and it was agony to me to know that you thought so of
me. That was why I could not rest last night until I had told you
that I was really unhappy; for it was something that I was unhappy,
wasn't it, Mr. Howard?"

"Yes," said the other, "it was very much indeed."

"And oh, I want you to know the truth," Helen went on swiftly.
"Perhaps it is just egotism on my part, and I have really no right
to tell you all about myself in this way; and perhaps you will scorn
me when you come to know the whole truth. But I cannot help telling
you about it, so that you may advise me what to do; I was all
helpless and lost, and what you said came last night like a
wonderful light. And I don't care what you think about me if you
will only tell me the real truth, in just the same way that you did;
for I realized afterwards that it was that which had helped me so.
It was the first time in my life that it had ever happened to me;
when you meet people in the world, they only say things that they
know will please you, and that does you no good. I never realized
before how a person might go through the world and really never meet
with another heart in all his life; and that one can be fearfully
lonely, even in a parlor full of people. Did you ever think of that,
Mr. Howard?"

Mr. Howard had fixed his keen eyes upon the girl as she went
breathlessly on; she was very pale, and the sorrow through which she
had passed had left will think I have been so cold and wicked, that
you will soon scorn me altogether."

"I do not think that is possible," said her companion, gently, as he
saw the girl choking back a sob.

"Well, listen then," Helen began; but then she stopped again. "Do
you wish me to tell you?" she asked. "Do you care anything about it
at all, or does it seem--"

"I care very much about it, indeed," the other answered.

"However dreadful it may seem," said Helen. "Oh, please know that
while I have been doing it, it has made me utterly wretched, and
that I am so frightened now that I can scarcely talk to you; and
that if there is anything that I can do--oh, absolutely anything--I
will do it!" Then the girl bit her lips together and went on with
desperate haste, "It's what you said about what would happen if
there were someone else to love me, and to see how very bad I was!"

"There is some such person?" asked the man, in a low voice.

"Yes," said she. "It is someone I have known as long as I can
remember. And he loves me very much indeed, I think; and while I was
letting myself be tempted in this way he was very sick, and because
I knew I was so bad I did not dare go near him; and yesterday when
he heard I was going to marry this man, it almost killed him, and I
do not know what to fear now."

Then, punishing herself very bravely and swallowing all her bitter
shame, Helen went on to tell Mr. Howard of Arthur, and of her
friendship with him, and of how long he had waited for her; she
narrated in a few words how he had left her, and then how she had
seen him upon the road. Afterwards she stopped and sat very still,
trembling, and with her eyes lowered, quite forgetting that she was
driving.

"Miss Davis," said the other, gently, seeing how she was suffering,
"if you wish my advice about this, I should not worry myself too
much; it is better, I find in my own soul's life, to save most of
the time that one spends upon remorse, and devote it to action."

"To action?" asked Helen.

"Yes," said the other. "You have been very thoughtless, but you may
hope that nothing irrevocable has happened; and when you have seen
your friend and told him the truth just as you have told it to me, I
fancy it will bring him joy enough to compensate him for what he has
suffered."

"That was what I meant to do," the girl went on. "But I have been
terrified by all sorts of fancies, and when I remember how much pain
I caused him, I scarcely dare think of speaking to him. When I saw
him by the roadside, Mr. Howard, he seemed to me to look exactly
like you, there was such dreadful suffering written in his face."

"A man who lives as you have told me your friend has lived," said
the other, "has usually a very great power of suffering; such a man
builds for himself an ideal which gives him all his joy and his
power, and makes his life a very glorious thing; but when anything
happens to destroy his vision or to keep him from seeking it, he
suffers with the same intensity that he rejoiced before. The great
hunger that was once the source of his power only tears him to
pieces then, as steam wrecks a broken engine."

"It's very dreadful," Helen said, "how thoughtless I was all along.
I only knew that he loved me very much, and that it was a vexation
to me."

Mr. Howard glanced at her. "You do not love him?" he asked.

"No," said Helen, quickly. "If I had loved him, I could never have
had a thought of all these other things. But I had no wish to love
anybody; it was more of my selfishness."

"Perhaps not," the other replied gently. "Some day you may come to
love him, Miss Davis."

"I do not know," Helen said. "Arthur was very impatient."

"When a man is swift and eager in all his life," said Mr. Howard,
smiling, "he cannot well be otherwise in his love. Such devotion
ought to be very precious to a woman, for such hearts are not easy
to find in the world."

Helen had turned and was gazing anxiously at Mr. Howard as he spoke
to her thus. "You really think," she said, "that I should learn to
appreciate Arthur's love?"

"I cannot know much about him from the little you have told me," was
the other's answer. "But it seems to me that it is there you might
find the best chance to become the unselfish woman that you wish to
be."

"It is very strange," the girl responded, wonderingly, "how
differently you think about it. I should have supposed I was acting
very unwisely indeed if I loved Arthur; everyone would have told me
of his poverty and obscurity, and of how I must give up my social
career."

"I think differently, perhaps," Mr. Howard said, "because I have
lived so much alone. I have come to know that happiness is a thing
of one's own heart, and not of externals; the questions I should ask
about a marriage would not be of wealth and position. If you really
wish to seek the precious things of the soul, I should think you
would be very glad to prove it by some sacrifice; and I know that
two hearts are brought closer, and all the memories of life made
dearer, by some such trial in the early days. People sneer at love
in a cottage, but I am sure that love that could wish to live
anywhere else is not love. And as to the social career, a person who
has once come to know the life of the heart soon ceases to care for
any kind of life that is heartless; a social career is certainly
that, and in comparison very vulgar indeed."

Helen looked a little puzzled, and repeated the word "vulgar"
inquiringly. Mr Howard smiled.

"That is the word I always use when I am talking about high life,"
he said, laughing. "You may hurl the words 'selfish' and 'worldly'
at it all you please, and never reach a vital spot; but the word
'vulgar' goes straight to the heart."

"You must explain to me why it is that," said Helen, with so much
seriousness that the other could not help smiling again.

"Perhaps I cannot make anyone else see the thing as I do," was his
reply. "And yet it seems rery simple. When a man lives a while in
his own soul, he becomes aware of the existence of a certain
spiritual fact which gives life all its dignity and meaning; he
learns that this sacred thing demands to be sought for, and
worshiped; and that the man who honors it and seeks it is only
hailed as gentleman, and aristocrat, and that he who does not honor
it and seek it is vulgar, tho he be heir of a hundred earls, and
leader of all society, and lord of millions. Every day that one
lives in this presence that I speak of, he discovers a little more
how sacred a thing is true nobility, and how impertinent is the
standard that values men for the wealth they win, or for the ribbons
they wear, or for anything else in the world. I fancy that you, if
you came once to love your friend, would find it very easy to do
without the admiration of those who go to make up society; they
would come to seem to you very trivial and empty people, and
afterwards, perhaps, even very cruel and base."

Mr. Howard stopped; but then seeing that Helen was gazing at him
inquiringly once more he added, gravely, "One could be well content
to let vain people strut their little hour and be as wonderful as
they chose, if it were not for the painful fact that they are eating
the bread of honest men, and that millions are toiling and starving
in order that they may have ease and luxury. That is such a very
dreadful thing to know that sometimes one can think of nothing else,
and it drives him quite mad."

The girl sat very still after that, trembling a little in her heart;
finally she asked, her voice shaking slightly, "Mr. Howard, what can
one do about such things?"

"Very little," was the reply, "for they must always be; but at least
one can keep his own life earnest and true. A woman who felt such
things very keenly might be an inspiration to a man who was called
upon to battle with selfishness and evil."

"You are thinking of Arthur once more?" asked the girl.

"Yes," answered the other, with a slight smile. "It would be a happy
memory for me, to know that I have been able to give you such an
ideal. Some of these days, you see, I am hoping that we shall again
have a poet with a conviction and a voice, so that men may know that
sympathy and love are things as real as money. I am quite sure there
never was a nation so ridiculously sodden as our own just at
present; all of our maxims and ways of life are as if we were the
queer little Niebelung creatures that dig for treasure in the bowels
of the earth, and see no farther than the ends of their shovels; we
live in the City of God, and spend all our time scraping the gold of
the pavements. Your uncle told me this morning that he did not see
why a boy should go to college when he can get a higher salary if he
spends the four years in business. I find that there is nothing to
do but to run away and live alone, if one wants really to believe
that man is a spiritual nature, with an infinite possibility of
wonder and love; and that the one business of his life is to develop
that nature by contact with things about him; and that every act of
narrow selfishness he commits is a veil which he ties about his own
eyes, and that when he has tied enough of them, not all the pearl
and gold of the gorgeous East can make him less a pitiable wretch."

Mr. Howard stopped again, and smiled slightly; Helen sat gazing
thoughtfully ahead, thinking about his way of looking at life, and
how very strange her own actions seemed in the light of it.
Suddenly, however, because throughout all the conversation there had
been another thought in her consciousness, she glanced ahead and
urged the horse even faster. She saw far in the distance the houses
of the place to which she was bound, and she said nothing more, her
companion also becoming silent as he perceived her agitation.

Helen had been constantly growing more anxious, so that now the
carriage could not travel fast enough; it seemed to her that
everything depended upon what she might find at Hilltown. It was
only the thought of Arthur that kept her from feeling completely
free from her wretchedness; she felt that she might remedy all the
wrong that she had done, and win once more the prize of a good
conscience, provided only that nothing irretrievable had happened to
him. Now as she came nearer she found herself imagining more and
more what might have happened, and becoming more and more impatient.
There was a balance dangling before her eyes, with utter happiness
on one side and utter misery on the other; the issue depended upon
what she discovered at Hilltown.

The two sat in silence, both thinking of the same thing, as they
whirled past the place where Helen had seen Arthur before. The girl
trembled as she glanced at it, for all of the previous day's
suffering rose before her again, and made her fears still more real
and importunate. She forced herself to look, however, half thinking
that she might see Arthur again; but that did not happen, and in a
minute or two more the carriage had come to the house where he
lived. She gave the reins to Mr. Howard, and sprang quickly out; she
rang the bell, and then stood for a minute, twitching her fingers,
and waiting.

The woman who kept the house, and whom Helen knew personally, opened
the door; the visitor stepped in and gasped out breathlessly, "Where
is Arthur?" Her hands shook visibly as she waited for the reply.

"He is not in, Miss Davis," the woman answered.

"Where is he?" Helen cried.

"I do not know," was the response. "He has gone."

"Gone!" And the girl started back, catching at her heart. "Gone
where?"

"I do not know, Miss Davis."

"But what--" began the other.

"This will tell you all I know," said the woman, as she fumbled in
her apron, and put a scrap of crumpled paper into Helen's trembling
hands.

The girl seized it and glanced at it; then she staggered back
against the wall, ghastly pale and almost sinking. The note, in
Arthur's hand, but so unsteady as to be almost illegible, ran thus:
"You will find in this my board for the past week; I am compelled to
leave Hilltown, and I shall not ever return."

And that was all. Helen stared at it and stared again, and then let
it fall and gazed about her, echoing, in a hollow voice, "And I
shall not ever return!"

"That is all I can tell you about it," went on the woman. "I have
not seen him since Elizabeth was here yesterday morning; he came
back late last night and packed his bag and went away."

Helen sank down upon a chair and buried her face in her hands, quite
overwhelmed by the suddenness of that discovery. She remained thus
for a long time, without either sound or motion, and the woman stood
watching her, knowing full well what was the matter. When Helen
looked up again there was agony written upon her countenance. "Oh,
are you sure you have no idea where I can find him?" she moaned.

"No, Miss Davis," said the woman. "I was asounded when I got this
note."

"But someone must know, oh, surely they must! Someone must have seen
him,--or he must have told someone!"

"I think it likely that he took care not to," was the reply.

The thought was a death-knell to Helen's last hope, and she sank
down, quite overcome; she knew that Arthur could have had but one
motive in acting as he had,--that he meant to cut himself off
entirely from all his old life and surroundings. He had no friends
in Hilltown, and having lived all alone, it would be possible for
him to do it. Helen remembered Mr. Howard's saying of the night
before, how the sight of her baseness might wreck a man's life
forever, and the more she thought of that, the more it made her
tremble. It seemed almost more than she could bear to see this
fearful consequence of her sin, and to know that it had become a
fact of the outer world, and gone beyond her power. It seemed quite
too cruel that she should have such a thing on her conscience, and
have it there forever; most maddening of all was the thought that it
had depended upon a few hours of time.

"Oh, how can I have waited!" she moaned. "I should have come last
night, I should have stopped the carriage when I saw him! Oh, it is
not possible!"

Perhaps there are no more tragic words in human speech than "Too
late." Helen felt just then as if the right even to repentance were
taken from her life. It was her first introduction to that fearful
thing of which Mr. Howard had told her upon their first meeting; in
the deep loneliness of her own heart Helen was face to face just
then with FATE. She shrank back in terror, and she struggled
frantically, but she felt its grip of steel about her wrist; and
while she sat there with her face hidden, she was learning to gaze
into its eyes, and front their fiery terror. When she looked up
again her face was very white and pitiful to see, and she rose from
her chair and went toward the door so unsteadily that the woman put
her arm about her.

"You will tell me," she gasped faintly--"you will tell me if you
hear anything?"

"Yes," said the other gently, "I will."

So Helen crept into the carriage again, looking so full of
wretchedness that her companion knew that the worst must have
happened, and took the reins and silently drove towards home, while
the girl sat perfectly still. They were fully half way home before
she could find a word in which to tell him of her misery. "I shall
never be happy in my life again!" she whispered. "Oh, Mr. Howard,
never in my life!"

When the man gazed at her, he was frightened to see how grief and
fear had taken possession of her face; and yet there was no word
that he could say to soothe her, and no hope that he could give her.
When the drive was ended, she stole silently up to her room, to be
alone with her misery once more.






CHAPTER XI.





  "Thou majestic in thy sadness."

Upon the present occasion there was no violent demonstration of
emotion to alarm the Roberts household, for Helen's grief was not of
the kind to vent itself in a passionate outburst and pass away. To
be sure, she wept a little, but the thoughts which haunted her were
not of a kind to be forgotten, and afterwards she was as wretched as
ever. What she had done seemed to her so dreadful that even tears
were not right, and she felt that she ought only to sit still and
think of it, and be frightened; it seemed to her just then as if she
would have to do the same thing for the rest of her days. She spent
several hours in her room without once moving, and without being
disturbed, for her aunt was sufficiently annoyed at her morning's
reception not to visit her again. The lunch hour passed, therefore,
unthought of by Helen, and it was an hour or two later before she
heard her aunt's step in the hall, and her knock upon the door.

Mrs. Roberts entered and stood in the center of the room, gazing at
Helen, and at the look of helpless despair which she turned towards
her; the woman's own lips were set very tightly.

"Well?" she said abruptly, "have you had your wish, and are you
happy?"

Helen did not answer, nor did she half realize the question, so lost
was she in her own misery. She sat gazing at her aunt, while the
latter went on: "You have had your way in one thing, at any rate,
Helen; Mr. Harrison is downstairs to see you."

The girl gave a slight start, but then she answered quietly: "Thank
you, Auntie; I shall go down and see him."

"Helen," said Mrs. Roberts, "do you still refuse to tell me anything
of what I ask you?"

Helen was quite too much humbled to wish to oppose anyone just then;
and she answered mournfully, "What is it that you wish?"

"I wish to know in the first place why you wanted to see Mr.
Harrison."

"I wanted to see him to tell him that I could not marry him, Aunt
Polly."

And Mrs. Roberts sat down opposite Helen and fixed her gaze upon
her. "I knew that was it," she said grimly. "Now, Helen, what in the
world has come over you to make you behave in this fashion?"

"Oh, it is so much to tell you," began the girl; "I don't know--"

"What did you find at Hilltown?" went on her aunt persistently. "Did
you see Arthur?"

"No, Aunt Polly, that is what is the matter; he has gone."

"Gone! Gone where?"

"Away, Aunt Polly! Nobody saw him go, and he left a note saying that
he would never return. And I am so frightened--"

Mrs. Roberts was gazing at her niece with a puzzled look upon her
face. She interrupted her by echoing the word "frightened"
inquiringly.

"Yes, Auntie!" cried the girl; "for I may never be able to find him
again, to undo what I have done!"

And Mrs. Roberts responded with a wondering laugh, and observed,
"For my part, I should think you'd be very glad to be rid of him
so."

She saw Helen give a start, but she could not read the girl's mind,
and did not know how much she had done to estrange her by those
words. It was as if Helen's whole soul had shrunk back in horror,
and she sat staring at her aunt with open eyes.

"I suppose you think," the other went on grimly, "that I am going to
share all this wonderful sentimentality with you about that boy; but
I assure you that you don't know me! He may get you to weep over him
because he chooses to behave like a fool, but not me."

Helen was still for a moment, and then she said, in an awe-stricken
voice: "Aunt Polly, I have wrecked Arthur's life!" Mrs. Roberts
responded with a loud guffaw, which was to the other so offensive
that it was like a blow in the face.

"Wrecked his life!" the woman cried scornfully. "Helen, you talk
like a baby! Can't you know in the first place that Arthur is doing
all this high-tragedy acting for nothing in the world but to
frighten you? Wrecked his life! And there you were, I suppose, all
ready to get down on your knees to him, and beg his pardon for
daring to be engaged, and to promise to come to his attic and live
off bread and water, if he would only be good and not run away!"

Mrs. Roberts' voice was bitter and mocking, and her words seemed to
Helen almost blasphemy; it had never occurred to her that such grief
as hers would not be sacred to anyone. Yet there was no thought of
anger in her mind just then, for she had been chastened in a fiery
furnace, and was too full of penitence and humility for even that
much egotism. She only bowed her head, and said, in a trembling
voice: "Oh, Aunt Polly, I would stay in an attic and live off bread
and water for the rest of my days, if I could only clear my
conscience of the dreadful thing I have done."

"A beautiful sentiment indeed!" said Mrs. Roberts, with a sniff of
disgust; and she stood surveying her niece in silence for a minute
or two. Then smothering her feelings a little, she asked her in a
quieter voice, "And so, Helen, you are really going to fling aside
the life opportunity that is yours for such nonsense as this? There
is no other reason?"

"There is another reason, Aunt Polly," said Helen; "it is so
dreadful of you to ask me in that way. How CAN you have expected me
to marry a man just because he was rich?"

"Oh," said the other, "so that is it! And pray what put the idea
into your head so suddenly?" She paused a moment, and then, as the
girl did not raise her head, she went on, sarcastically, "I fancy I
know pretty well where you got all of these wonderful new ideas; you
have not been talking with Mr. Howard for nothing, I see."

"No, not for nothing," said Helen gently.

"A nice state of affairs!" continued the other angrily; "I knew
pretty well that his head was full of nonsense, but when I asked him
here I thought at least that he would know enough about good manners
to mind his own affairs. So he has been talking to you, has he? And
now you cannot possibly marry a rich man!"

Mrs. Roberts stopped, quite too angry to find any more words; but as
she sat for a minute or two, gazing at Helen, it must have occurred
to her that she would not accomplish anything in that way. She made
an effort to swallow her emotions.

"Helen, dear," she said, sitting down near her niece, "why will you
worry me in this dreadful way, and make me speak so crossly to you?
I cannot tell you, Helen, what a torment it is to me to see you
throwing yourself away in this fashion; I implore you to stop and
think before you take this step, for as sure as you are alive you
will regret it all your days. Just think of it how you will feel,
and how I will feel, when you look back at the happiness you might
have had, and know that it is too late! And, Helen, it is due to
nothing in the world but to your inexperience that you have let
yourself be carried away by these sublimities. You MUST know, child,
and you can see if you choose, that they have nothing to do with
life; they will not butter your bread, Helen, or pay your coachman,
and when you get over all this excitement, you will find that what I
tell you is true. Look about you in the world, and where can you
find anybody who lives according to such ideas?"

"What ideas do you mean, Aunt Polly?" asked Helen, with a puzzled
look.

"Oh, don't you suppose," answered the other, "that I know perfectly
well what kind of stuff it is that Mr. Howard has talked to you? I
used to hear all that kind of thing when I was young, and I believed
some of it, too,--about how beautiful it was to marry for love, and
to have a fine scorn of wealth and all the rest of it; but it wasn't
very long before I found out that such opinions were of no use in
the world."

"Then you don't believe in love, Aunt Polly?" asked Helen, fixing
her eyes on the other.

"What's the use of asking such an absurd question?" was the answer.
"Of course I believe in love; I wanted you to love Mr. Harrison, and
you might have, if you had chosen. I learned to love Mr. Roberts;
naturally, a couple have to love each other, or how would they ever
live happily together? But what has that to do with this ridiculous
talk of Mr. Howard's? As if two people had nothing else to do in the
world but to love each other! It's all very well, Helen, for a man
who chooses to live like Robinson Crusoe to talk such nonsense, but
he ought not to put it in the mind of a sentimental girl. He would
very soon find, if he came out into life, that the world isn't run
by love, and that people need a good many other things to keep them
happy in it. You ought to have sense enough to see that you've got
to live a different sort of a life, and that Mr. Howard knows
nothing in the world about your needs. I don't go alone and live in
visions, and make myself imaginary lives, Helen; I look at the world
as it is. You will have to learn some day that the real way to find
happiness is to take things as you find them, and get the best out
of life you can. I never had one-tenth of your advantages, and yet
there aren't many people in the world better off than I am; and you
could be just as happy, if you would only take my advice about it.
What I am talking to you is common sense, Helen, and anybody that
you choose to ask will tell you the same thing."

So Mrs. Roberts went on, quite fairly under way in her usual course
of argument, and rousing all her faculties for this last struggle.
She was as convinced as ever of the completeness of her own views,
and of the effect which they must have upon Helen; perhaps it was
not her fault that she did not know to what another person she was
talking.

In truth, it would not be easy to tell how great a difference there
was in the effect of those old arguments upon Helen; while she had
been sitting in her room alone and suffering so very keenly, the
girl had been, though she did not know it, very near indeed to the
sacred truths of life, and now as she listened to her aunt, she was
simply holding her breath. The climax came suddenly, for as the
other stopped, Helen leaned forward in her chair, and gazing deep
into her eyes asked her, "Aunt Polly, can it really be that you do
not know that what you have been saying to me is dreadfully
_wicked_?"

There was perhaps nothing that the girl could have done to take her
complacent relative more by surprise; Mrs. Roberts sat for a moment,
echoing the last word, and staring as if not quite able to realize
what Helen meant. As the truth came to her she turned quite pale.

"It seems to me," she said with a sneer, "that I remember a time
when it didn't seem quite so wicked to you. If I am not mistaken you
were quite glad to do all that I told you, and to get as much as
ever you could."

Helen was quite used to that taunt in her own heart, and to the pain
that it brought her, so she only lowered her eyes and said nothing.
In the meantime Mrs. Roberts was going on in her sarcastic tone:

"Wicked indeed!" she ejaculated, "and I suppose all that I have been
doing for you was wicked too! I suppose it was wicked of me to watch
over your education all these years as I have, and to plan your
future as if you were my own child, so that you might amount to
something in the world; and it was wicked of me to take all the
trouble that I have for your happiness, and wicked of Mr. Roberts to
go to all the trouble about the trousseau that he has! The only
right and virtuous thing about it all is the conduct of our niece
who causes us to do it all, and who promises herself to a man and
lets him go to all the trouble that he has, and then gets her head
full of sanctimonious notions and begins to preach about wickedness
to her elders!"

Helen had nothing to reply to those bitter words, for it was only
too easy just then to make her accuse herself of anything. She sat
meekly suffering, and thinking that the other was quite justified in
all her anger. Mrs. Roberts was, of course, quite incapable of
appreciating her mood, and continued to pour out her sarcasm, and to
grow more and more bitter. To tell the truth, the worthy matron had
not been half so unselfish in her hopes about Helen as she liked to
pretend, and she showed then that like most people of the world who
are perfectly good-natured on the surface, she could display no
little ugliness when thwarted in her ambitions and offended in her
pride.

It was not possible, however, for her to find a word that could seem
to Helen unjust, so much was the girl already humbled. It was only
after her aunt had ceased to direct her taunts at her, and turned
her spite upon Mr. Howard and his superior ideas, that it seemed to
Helen that it was not helping her to hear any more; then she rose
and said, very gently, "Aunt Polly, I am sorry that you feel so
about me, and I wish that I could explain to you better what I am
doing. I know that what I did at first was all wrong, but that is no
reason why I should leave it wrong forever. I think now that I ought
to go and talk to Mr. Harrison, who is waiting for me, and after
that I want you to please send me home, because father will be there
to-day, and I want to tell him about how dreadfully I have treated
Arthur, and beg him to forgive me."

Then, without waiting for any reply, the girl left the room and went
slowly down the steps. The sorrow that possessed her lay so deep
upon her heart that everything else seemed trivial in comparison,
and she had put aside and forgotten the whole scene with her aunt
before she had reached the parlor where Mr. Harrison was waiting;
she did not stop to compose herself or to think what to say, but
went quickly into the room.

Mr. Harrison, who was standing by the window, turned when he heard
her; she answered his greeting kindly, and then sat down and
remained very still for a moment or two, gazing at her hands in her
lap. At last she raised her eyes to him, and asked: "Mr. Harrison,
did you receive the letter I wrote you?"

"Yes," the other answered quickly, "I did. I cannot tell you how
much pain it caused me. And, Helen--or must I call you Miss Davis?"

"You may call me Helen," said the girl simply. "I was very sorry to
cause you pain," she added, "but there was nothing else that I could
do."

"At least," the other responded, "I hope that you will not refuse to
explain to me why this step is necessary?"

"No, Mr. Harrison," said Helen, "it is right that I should tell you
all, no matter how hard it is to me to do it. It is all because of a
great wrong that I have done; I know that when I have told you, you
will think very badly of me indeed, but I have no right to do
anything except to speak the truth."

She said that in a very low voice, not allowing her eyes to drop,
and wearing upon her face the look of sadness which seemed now to
belong to it always. Mr. Harrison gazed at her anxiously, and said:
"You seem to have been ill, Helen."

"I have been very unhappy, Mr. Harrison," she answered, "and I do
not believe I can ever be otherwise again. Did you not notice that I
was unhappy?"

"I never thought of it until yesterday," the other replied.

"Until the drive," said Helen; "that was the climax of it. I must
tell you the reason why I was so frightened then,--that I have a
friend who was as dear to me as if he were my brother, and he loved
me very much, very much more than I deserve to be loved by anyone;
and when I was engaged to you he was very ill, and because I knew I
was doing so wrong I did not dare to go and see him. That was why I
was afraid to pass through Hilltown. The reason I was so frightened
afterwards is that I caught a glimpse of him, and he was in such a
dreadful way. This morning I found that he had left his home and
gone away, no one knows where, so that I fear I shall never see him
again."

Helen paused, and the other, who had sat down and was leaning
forward anxiously, asked her, "Then it is this friend that you
love?"

"No," the girl replied, "it is not that; I do not love anybody."

"But then I do not understand," went on Mr. Harrison, with a puzzled
look. "You spoke of its having been so wrong; was it not your right
to wish to marry me?"

And Helen, punishing herself as she had learned so bravely to do,
did not lower her eyes even then; she flushed somewhat, however, as
she answered: "Mr. Harrison, do you know WHY I wished to marry you?"

The other started a trifle, and looked very much at a loss indeed.
"Why?" he echoed. "No, I do not know--that is--I never thought--"

"It hurts me more than I can tell you to have to say this to you,"
Helen said, "for you were right and true in your feeling. But did
you think that I was that, Mr. Harrison? Did you think that I really
loved you?"

Probably the good man had never been more embarrassed in his life
than he was just then. The truth to be told, he was perfectly well
aware why Helen had wished to marry him, and had been all along,
without seeing anything in that for which to dislike her; he was
quite without an answer to her present question, and could only
cough and stammer, and reach for his handkerchief. The girl went on
quickly, without waiting very long for his reply.

"I owe it to you to tell you the truth," she said, "and then it will
no longer cause you pain to give me up. For I did not love you at
all, Mr. Harrison; but I loved all that you offered me, and I
allowed myself to be tempted thus, to promise to marry you. Ever
afterwards I was quite wretched, because I knew that I was doing
something wicked, and yet I never had the courage to stop. So it
went on until my punishment came yesterday. I have suffered
fearfully since that."

Helen had said all that there was to be said, and she stopped and
took a deep breath of relief. There was a minute or two of silence,
after which Mr. Harrison asked: "And you really think that it was so
wrong to promise to marry me for the happiness that I could offer
you?"

Helen gazed at him in surprise as she echoed, "Was it so wrong?" And
at the same moment even while she was speaking, a memory flashed
across her mind, the memory of what had occurred at Fairview the
last time she had been there with Mr. Harrison. A deep, burning
blush mantled her face, and her eyes dropped, and she trembled
visibly. It was a better response to the other's question than any
words could have been, and because in spite of his contact with the
world he was still in his heart a gentleman, he understood and
changed color himself and looked away, feeling perhaps more rebuked
and humbled than he had ever felt in his life before.

So they sat thus for several minutes without speaking a word, or
looking at each other, each doing penance in his own heart. At last,
in a very low voice, the man said, "Helen, I do not know just how I
can ever apologize to you."

The girl answered quietly: "I could not let you apologize to me, Mr.
Harrison, for I never once thought that you had done anything
wrong."

"I have done very wrong indeed," he answered, his voice trembling,
"for I do not think that I had any right even to ask you to marry
me. You make me feel suddenly how very coarse a world I have lived
in, and how much lower than yours all my ways of thinking are. You
look surprised that I say that," he added, as he saw that the girl
was about to interrupt him, "but you do not know much about the
world. Do you suppose that there are many women in society who would
hesitate to marry me for my money?"

"I do not know," said Helen, slowly; "but, Mr. Harrison, you could
certainly never be happy with a woman who would do that."

"I do not think now that I should," the man replied, earnestly, "but
I did not feel that way before. I did not have much else to offer,
Helen, for money is all that a man like me ever tries to get in the
world."

"It is so very wrong, Mr. Harrison," put in the other, quickly.
"When people live in that way they come to lose sight of all that is
right and beautiful in life; and it is all so selfish and wicked!"
(Those were words which might have made Mr. Howard smile a trifle
had he been there to hear them; but Helen was too much in earnest to
think about being original.)

"I know," said Mr. Harrison, "and I used to believe in such things;
but one never meets anyone else that does, and it is so easy to live
differently. When you spoke to me as you did just now, you made me
seem a very poor kind of a person indeed."

The man paused, and Helen sat gazing at him with a worried look upon
her face. "It was not that which I meant to do," she began, but then
she stopped; and after a long silence, Mr. Harrison took up the
conversation again, speaking in a low, earnest voice.

"Helen," he said, "you have made me see that I am quite unworthy to
ask for your regard,--that I have really nothing fit to offer you.
But I might have one thing that you could appreciate,--for I could
worship, really worship, such a woman as you; and I could do
everything that I could think of to make myself worthy of you,--even
if it meant the changing of all my ways of life. Do you not suppose
that you could quite forget that I was a rich man, Helen, and still
let me be devoted to you?"

There was a look in Mr. Harrison's eyes as he gazed at her just then
which made him seem to her a different sort of a man,--as indeed he
was. She answered very gently. "Mr. Harrison," she said, "it would
be a great happiness to me to know that anyone felt so about me. But
I could never marry you; I do not love you."

"And you do not think," asked the other, "that you could ever come
to love me, no matter how long I might wait?"

"I do not think so," Helen said in a low voice. "I wish that you
would not ever think of me so."

"It is very easy to say that," the man answered, pleadingly, "but
how am I to do it? For everything that I have seems cheap compared
with the thought of you. Why should I go on with the life I have
been leading, heaping up wealth that I do not know how to use, and
that makes me no better and no happier? I thought of you as a new
motive for going on, Helen, and you must know that a man cannot so
easily change his feelings. For I really loved you, and I do love
you still, and I think that I always must love you."

Helen's own suffering had made her alive to other people's feelings,
and the tone of voice in which he spoke those words moved her very
much. She leaned over and laid her hand upon his,--something which
she would not have thought she could ever do.

"Mr. Harrison," she said, "I cannot tell you how much it hurts me to
have you speak to me so, for it makes me see more than ever how
cruelly unfeeling I have been, and how much I have wronged you. It
was for that I wished to beg you to forgive me, to forgive me just
out of the goodness of your heart, for I cannot offer any excuse for
what I did. It makes me quite wretched to have to say that, and to
know that others are suffering because of my selfishness; if I had
any thought of the sacredness of the beauty God has given me, I
would never have let you think of me as you did, and caused you the
pain that I have. But you must forgive me, Mr. Harrison, and help
me, for to think of your being unhappy about me also would be really
more than I could bear. Sometimes when I think of the one great
sorrow that I have already upon my conscience, I feel that I do not
know what I am to do; and you must go away and forget about me, for
my sake if not for your own. I really cannot love anyone; I do not
think that I am fit to love anyone; I only do not want to make
anyone else unhappy."

And Helen stopped again, and pressed her hand upon Mr. Harrison's
imploringly. He sat gazing at her in silence for a minute, and then
he said, slowly: "When you put it so, it is very hard for me to say
anything more. If you are only sure that that is your final
word--that there is really no chance that you could ever love me,--"

"I am perfectly sure of it," the girl answered; "and because I know
how cruel it sounds, it is harder for me to say than for you to
hear. But it is really the truth, Mr. Harrison. I do not think that
you ought to see me again until you are sure that it will not make
you unhappy."

The man sat for a moment after that, with his head bowed, and then
he bit his lip very hard and rose from his chair. "You can never
know," he said, "how lonely it makes a man feel to hear words like
those." But he took Helen's hand in his and held it for an instant,
and then added: "I shall do as you ask me. Good-by." And he let her
hand fall and went to the door. There he stopped to gaze once again
for a moment, and then turned and disappeared, closing the door
behind him.

Helen was left seated in the chair, where she remained for several
minutes, leaning forward with her head in her hands, and gazing
steadily in front of her, thinking very grave thoughts. She rose at
last, however, and brushed back the hair from her forehead, and went
slowly towards the door. It would have seemed lack of feeling to
her, had she thought of it, but even before she had reached the
stairs the scene through which she had just passed was gone from her
mind entirely, and she was saying to herself, "If I could only know
where Arthur is this afternoon!"

Her mind was still full of that thought when she entered the room,
where she found her aunt seated just as she had left her, and in no
more pleasant humor than before.

"You have told him, I suppose?" she inquired.

"Yes," Helen said, "I have told him, Aunt Polly."

"And now you are happy, I suppose!"

"No, indeed, I am very far from that," said Helen, and she went to
the window; she stood there, gazing out, but with her thoughts
equally far away from the scene outside as from Mrs. Roberts'
warnings and sarcasms. The latter had gone on for several minutes
before her niece turned suddenly. "Excuse me for interrupting you,
Aunt Polly," she said; "but I want to know whether Mr. Howard has
gone yet."